Crossing the channel...

What a palaver. Compare and contrast flying to Calais or Le Touquet.

Usually no police, border force, customs, immigration, to be seen for the entire trip, the only bureaucracy being the bit you never seem to be able to avoid, ie the guy collecting the landing fees.

But I was once surprised on leaving L2K (having gone there for lunch in the traditional manner) to be asked to show my passport. I had brought mine with me, but in fact this appeared to be unnecessary, because one of our party said to the policeman:

"Sorry mate, I left mine in the plane, is it OK if I go and get it?"

Nod from the policeman.

Guy walks to plane, gets in, takes off and flies home. ATC didn't try to stop him. I don't to this day know whether he'd really had his passport in the plane or whether he'd left it at home.

I thought it was online payment only when I last went that way, on the way to catch a plane at Gatwick?

So, got to where I was going, went online, and tried to pay. "This site only works from the UK." I was returning to the UK some time after the deadline for paying, of course.

It has been a long time since the Dartford crossing accepted 'loose change'. You either pay by phone, have an account, etc, or pay the penalty ;-)

In message , at 23:04:04 on Tue, 3 Jul

Not so easy to stuff coins into a modem, though.

It is. Best to have an online account so you pay automatically.

I acutally meant illegal immigrants.

Trying to get on board

No can do these days. All pre booked I think online

In article , Roland Perry scribeth thus

Perhaps I should have made the cynical bit at the end more;))!!!

What a lot of faffing around it is to pay that now, online at a pay zone can't even use a debit card onsite poor old NP had better be aware of another grief point on his way to ze vaterland;!!!

Compared with flying *anywhere* nowadays the ferry is a welcome change.

You're a bit out of date! There's no toll booths any more at the Dartford Crossing, it's all done by ANPR now and you have to pay on-line or by phone.

In message , at 09:21:00 on Wed, 4 Jul

There's absolutely no excuse (unless part of their business plan is to collect fines) or not having a few contactless-card lanes. The M6-toll can do it, so can Dartford.

You can at lesast stretch your legs and insult the seagulls

Been there done that. They sent me a rude note so I paid online

Not sure I havent still got a payment lodged with them from last year

So can the whole of France

Of copurse the M6 toll is a private road innit?

Dartford is run by te guvmint.

Anyway I just registered for PAYG for the car, so its £1.67 every time they detect my number plate.

Which hstorically has been about 50%.

The M6 toll road carries nothing like as much traffic as Dartford. Traffic stopping to pay at a booth always slows things down for everyone.

The CC has never allowed paying at a booth. Like all these things you just need to know how to use it.

And be really careful not to get rear-ended when you stop in the middle of the M25 in order to wonder where the toll-booths went.

There's a very good excuse; the point of the exercise was to get rid of the toll booths altogether because of the horrific congestion they used to cause, and the accidents caused by people changing lanes to get in the right one for the kind of booth they wanted. I see nothing wrong with the system as implemented.

Indeed. Congestion has improved somewhat, but the bridge/tunnel itself is too small. But there is a new tunnel being mooted to the east of Dartford that should syphon off some of the Kent/Dover traffic.