Police in Haute-Savoie stopped a Porsche 911 GT3 after it reached 312 km/h on the A40 just after midnight on September 27. That is the highest speed ever officially recorded on a French public road. The Arve valley is no stranger to speed traps: officers from the Gendarmerie’s rapid intervention team and Bonneville’s motorized brigade were on routine patrol when their radar registered a figure so high they checked the laser twice. The legal limit is 130 km/h. After France’s standard 5% margin for error, the official speed stood at 300 km/h, still 170 km/h over the limit. French media, including actu.orange.fr, report that authorities routinely apply the margin to account for possible technical glitches.
Police seized the Porsche, a German supercar with 500 CV and a top speed of between 315 and 318 km/h. The driver, a 48-year-old Swiss citizen, lost his license at the scene. Officers demanded a €1,500 deposit as a judicial guarantee before trial. Under French law, driving more than 50 km/h over the limit is a crime. The penalty can include up to three months in jail and a €3,750 fine, while the car can be permanently confiscated. Swiss outlet 20 Minuten reported that officers took the driver’s license at the scene and sent the Porsche to the impound lot.
The Gendarmerie says this is the worst speeding case ever recorded on a French public road. The previous record was set in May, also on the A40, when an Audi RS3 reached 287 km/h. Captain Joël Contal of the Haute-Savoie Gendarmerie told France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes that at 312 km/h, the car covered almost 87 meters per second. That speed poses a huge risk on a busy mountain road used by traffic crossing between France and Switzerland and continuing into Italy. Autojournal.fr notes that this stretch of the A40 is a hotspot for speed checks because of its location and history of high-speed runs.
Such cases are rare. France’s National Road Safety Observatory says only 0.3% of speeding tickets are for driving more than 50 km/h over the limit. Speed remains a leading cause of deadly crashes, the French Road Safety Authority often warns. Several French and Swiss outlets say the defense might challenge the radar reading in court, citing the gap between the initial 312 km/h reading and the official 300 km/h figure. No court ruling has been issued, and the driver’s fate has yet to be decided.
Europe sees its share of speeders, but this case is on another level. Spanish police recently caught a driver at over 200 km/h, as reported earlier. The French case leaves even that incident in the dust.
The Gendarmerie summed it up: "It’s the first time we’ve seen anything like this in Haute-Savoie. We’ve recorded speeds of 230 km/h and 290 km/h before, but never at this level. The radar does not lie."
The Porsche remains in the impound, and the driver is awaiting court proceedings.
