Dover Ferry Queues

Well we made it. Only three hours later than our booked departure so could have been much worse. The road in Europe were all clear — probably because all the lorries are stuck on the M20. :cry:
 
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
 
Malevolence said:
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
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Spoken like the man who complains bitterly when his ex wife exercises reluctant compliance when he turns up to pick up the kids for the holidays. Abandoned now she's lost her shape, him seduced by the temptation of all the fish in the sea; why can't she just be an adult about it, he muses, as she surreptitiously chuckles at his awkward unfamiliarity with a home he used to navigate with comfort and ease.

Oh well, Karma says she'll see you next Tuesday.
 
Malevolence said:
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
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This may be of some interest. It's not so much that the French are just being reticent - it's just that Egates are seemingly impractical at Dover, because they would mean everyone having to get out of their car to use them.

Mr Reardon told The Connexion: “The e-gates [and similar machines] which make biometric checks possible for pedestrians at airports or railway stations just do not exist at a ferry terminal, or indeed at the motorway crossing points at the eastern frontier of the European Union. We cannot get people out of their vehicles [for the checks], because that is a safety risk, as there is traffic moving around. EES is a system owned, designed, built and operated by the French border police [who carry out EU entry checks at Dover], so the responsibility sits with them. We at the Port of Dover have a very keen interest because our interest is in the safety of everybody passing through our site."

Mr Reardon added that the port is concerned that the biometric checks system would prevent traffic from flowing through “at the rate at which it currently travels.

“In other words, if we get 300 cars passing through the port in an hour, then the system has to be able to process them. The French border police understand entirely the issues surrounding keeping up with the rate of flow and around people getting out of cars, which is why they are looking at a tablet solution. The tablet would be handed through a car window and everyone inside would record their data on it. But that is a concept, not a functioning process,” he added, stressing that it is not known whether it would work quickly enough to keep up with the flow of traffic. “It might be a dead end."

Mr Reardon added that, for the port: “The challenge is the stipulation written into European law that everything has to be done at the border. They've loaded the full weight of the process onto the point where traffic is least able to cope with it.
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www.connexionfrance.com

Dover Port boss warns of safety issues and delays with new EU checks

Ferry passengers will need to get out of their cars for the capturing of biometric data, which has to be done at the point of departure and is due to start this autumn
www.connexionfrance.com www.connexionfrance.com

The bit in bold suggests that they are doing something to try and address the situation, but I imagine it's not something that could be done quickly. So a little unfair to call them "dicks" for not being able to appropriately deal with a problem we created.
Perhaps this is one of those issues that should have been addressed and planned for before deciding to leave the EU.
 
Malevolence said:
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
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How can that be nothing to do with b***** then?
The French couldn't do that when we were in the EU and now they can.
 
Malevolence said:
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
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The situation in Portugal (and Spain) is very much the exception rather than the rule.

The majority of countries do not allow British travellers to use E-Gates, so this is not France being difficult.
 
Malevolence said:
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
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Just accept most people in Europe don't like you.
 
Malevolence said:
Have just seen on the BBC that most EU citizens coming over here can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal, so why not in when entering Europe via France? Oh yeah, it has little to do with the word that cannot be mentioned and more to do with the French doing their usual thing and acting like a bunch of dicks.
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No it's the French doing exactly what they're entitled to do and that people have spent decades complaining that we didn't do...

The only reason we aren't doing the same is because our government never bothered to spend the money to get the staff to do it when we were a member of the EU and haven't increased the funding to do it effectively now we're not.

It's called boarder control, I'm surprised you're not all for it and protesting the fact our wonderful government isn't doing the same.
 
Werewolf said:
No it's the French doing exactly what they're entitled to do and that people have spent decades complaining that we didn't do...

The only reason we aren't doing the same is because our government never bothered to spend the money to get the staff to do it when we were a member of the EU and haven't increased the funding to do it effectively now we're not.

It's called boarder control, I'm surprised you're not all for it and protesting the fact our wonderful government isn't doing the same.
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Its called border control ;)

Boarder control is more like trying to stop the pirates getting on board.
Although I suspect most of europe do consider it boarder control when Brits go on holiday ;)
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Its called border control ;)

Boarder control is more like trying to stop the pirates getting on board.
Although I suspect most of europe do consider it boarder control when Brits go on holiday ;)
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Imagine if the French cared about their other borders, they wouldn't have thousands of people camped in calais waiting to come here.
 
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Malevolence said:
can simply use the eGates and waltz on through passport control. We can do the same when entering Europe via Portugal,
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seems not if you follow home office advice
“Border guards use passport stamps to check you’re complying with the 90-day visa-free limit for short stays in the Schengen area,” the guidance says.
It further notes that in case relevant entry or exit stamps are not in the traveller’s passports, a border officer may presume that the passenger has overstayed the visa-free limit.


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Don't really understand how they have had the outbound calais ferry capacity to transport all the delayed travellers (massively underbooked ?)... if not, they are going to have to cancel ferries soon to avoid people arriving with no possibility to travel .. just like airline did.

for Calais return trips is the capacity/bandwidth of UK passport control there, much greater than Dover, or will UK travellers be backed up on french autoroutes.
 
GordyR said:
This is a thread dedicated to something that is a direct consequence of the very specific, ultra-hard incarnation of the "B-word", that our government chose to follow; and you cannot have an honest discussion about what's happening at Dover right now without mentioning it.
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You're not going to have an honest discussion anyway, there are too many people waaay too salty about it to have any sort of sensible dialogue, see some of the recent comments for example it's mostly just moaning, posturing etc.
 
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