Hypothetically, if I were to drive my car onto the train that takes you to France and then speed at 83 miles an hour down the middle of the train until I reach my car’s designated spot would I get a speeding ticket? (Obviously thats assuming I have impeccable driving skills and dont crash into the side walls or into the car in front). I have looked on LeShuttles website and it says theres a maximum speed of 6mph whilst on the platform, but technically nothing about once you’ve actually boarded the train. Does the train count as a road?

Furthermore the national speedlimits are higher in France than in the UK, so what would happen if I broke the UK speed limit but still stayed under the French speed limit? Further furthermore, how would the legal ramifications differ if I did that whilst still on UK soil, once on French soil, and if I was somehow able to pull that off whilst the train was halfway under the channel?

All purely hypothetical of course

Edit: I feel like people are getting too het up over the thought of doing 83mph down the middle of a train. That was just a number I plucked out of thin air. My point is more IS there a speed limit, if so who enforces it and what are the legal ramifications of breaking it, along with I guess another thinking point on do the answers to these questions mean the law sees the train as a road or something more akin to a private car park


14 comments

  2. A train isn’t a public road. Road Traffic Regulations aren’t binding on its board. But its owner or operator may ban you from using it if you violate the contract you signed.

  4. It’s not a road so traffic regulations wouldn’t apply but I suspect you could end up with a charge of reckless endangerment or something similar.

  7. Technically, the train is going north/south. Think bigger.. 

    if you drive eastwards, factor in that the earth is travelling around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour and spinning at another 1k mph.. 

    You could reasonably hit 68,050mph with sunglasses on knowing you’re legal, but going faster that anyone could ever know. 

  8. If you went at 83mph, you’d get to the end in a few seconds, which isn’t that much quicker than going 5mph in the grand scheme of things considering the length of the train.

    Also, you would very likely hit the side kerbs a bit and cause a bit of a ruckus.

  9. You wouldn’t get a ticket, but only as a key infrastructure place with armed police about… you might not get a day in court.

  10. Why are you asking if you can do 83mph? Do 88 mph instead, and arrive in France before the train is built.

  11. I can’t believe I’m replying to this, but here we are.

    As others had said you wouldn’t get a speeding ticket, although theoretically there is a track speed limit which will be pretty low in stations which you’d technically be exceeding(although it’s for trains) and in this crazy scenario it would be the railway track owners enforcing the limit rather than police.

    Also you mention speed limits in France are higher, when that isn’t strictly true, from what I can tell only the motorway speed limit is higher (130kph/80mph), dual carriageways are the same (110kph/70mph), urban areas whilst variable in the UK and I assume France are generally the same(50kph/30mph), and single carriageway roads outside urban areas France is actually lower (80kph/50mph) compared to UK(96kph/60mph)

  13. It’s not a public road, so highway code and related tickets do not apply at all. It’s an international high security zone, like an airport, so you’ll be considered a terrorist instead and shot on sight.

  14. The earth is spinning at around 1000mph so you are breaking the speed limit right now. It does make me wonder though if people have a black box or GPS how this works with going on a train or ferry, I know people have had tickets when on the back of a transporter lorry which needed querying.

    Your actual question – it is private property so won’t get a ticket from anyone, same if you did 80 in a supermarket car park.

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