The Austrian motorway vignette system

l'm driving to Italy for the bank holiday weekend and l wonder if anyone can let me know about those annoying vignette thingies that you need on the Austrian motorways.

l know you need one to drive there but this winter l seemed to keep buying weekly/10day ones whenever l went skiing - l ended up with 4 of them

Is is better to go for the yearly vignette and if so how much does it cost?
Or is it cheaper to just keep paying for the weekly ones if l only go there, say 4 times a year?
Finally is there a date when the yearly ones start so that if you buy it then you get the best value

Thx alot

for a normal-sized car, a vignette costs

€7,50 for 10 days
€22 for 2 months
€70 or so for a year

And by law you may not have any more than 2 of them on your windscreen at any given time.

http://www.vignette.at/maut/vignette/files...ettenfolder.pdf

The yearly ones are valid from 1st December to 31st January.

Don't forget you're gonna have ANOTHER toll on top of that for Brenner; €7-8 or so IIRC.

yeah for the stretch to the northern part of lake garda, it is €8 for the brenner. don't forget to pick up your coffee and espresso in italy. much cheaper than d-land.

If it's Venice you're going to then you can read about my experience of driving there at the following link...

http://www.keydeck.com/galleries/venice_09...nice_090302.htm

cheers for the info

will also remember to fill up with petrol in Austria since it's always cheaper there.
it's damn expensive here in munich at the mo

l blame bush and blair (and osama and saddam and let's not forget maggie thatcher while we're at it too!)

What? A toll for Brenner? Where? How? Seriously, I've driven that route a few times, and never paid for anything other than the Austrian vignette.

randy how the fcuk did you manage that, foot down crash through the barrier???

Oh my...long day, getting old, short-term memory loss. When "toll" was mentioned - I was thinking "vignette". As I've only purchased a sticker for the autobahn...

Yep - there's a few tolls in Italy

Oh, and you shouldn't pass up downtown Padova for anyone traipsing to Venice...

The Munich price of petrol is being forced up not totally by heavy taxation on fuel and the international situation. Munich has MUCH less competition amongst the petrol stations, fewer independents and much more of the big companies who of course never never ever ever do any illegal price fixing.

Go to the country and I heard it can be 10 cents a litre cheaper.

Anybody ever been hit by a fine for not carrying a vignette?

I just crossed into Austria on Sunday with a friend and after debating whether or not to buy one, did so. 1 minute after putting the sticker on, a cop pulled us over. When he saw the sticker though, he let us travel on.

I got done when I first arrived in Germany in '99. I was driving a German rent-a-van with my stuff from Vienna and stopped at a rastastop for a bite to eat. When I got back to the van there was the equivalent of a €75 fine on the windscreen.

BTW, the Brenner Video Maut is cool: you pay at a petrol station (in Germany for example) and give them your Reg number, then there is a special lane in the brenner which scans your reg. You don't even have to stop, just reduce your speed to 20kmh.

The Austrians are SHIT HOT on grabbing and fining German registered cars that break the local traffic regulations. They are sneaky little cops in that they love to hide in bushes, at the entrances to service stations and just past the point where the motorway becomes toll-paying (Küfstein Süd Junction btw.)

The Germans whinge all the time the Austrians are cruel to them becasue basicly they have a psycological problem with not being the top dogs all the time.
German motorists expect to be able to plough down the motorway ignoring the local speed limits as they think it's their God given right.

The Austrian police delight in using this failure of the Germans to understand that Austria (or indeed other countries) have their own rules, to hand out tickets. And then the Germans moan and whinge that traffic fines in other countries are big and butch compared to the odd Euro you pay in Germany.

grtho is right and beware if your car has german plates. if you're stopped speak english and admit to confusion.

i think they play german number plate bingo, i've seen a row of cars before a speed trap,all cars with plates starting D E F HH etc. i think the first cop to spell his name wins a beer.

but they are sharp, had a friend who got stopped for the "pickl", then stopped for speeding, and also fined for his front number plate missing, all on one journey, from st anton to garmisch. 90 mins on the autobahn cost him around 250 euros. sweet

Funny really - A lot of Austrians seem to think likewise when they are in Germany.
But then again, so do a lot of Belgians, Italians and Dutch people.

Sharp?

Is it not part of the jop of all traffic-cops, regardless of what country they work for, to look out for the black sheep on the roads?
Tiny tax-discs in the UK, tiny tax & Insurance discs in Ireland, tiny Insurance & CT discs in France, tiny TüV discs in Germany...
The fact that the Austrian police noticed someone has no -rather large- numberplate on their car has nothing to do with being sharp

Ah well, they did pay for them after all...

by sharp i meant scharf , sort of a bit heavy
not sharp as in eagle eyed as they dont seem to be able to see austrian cars speeding

grtho and gideon are 100% right. I have been stopped numerous times just past the Kufstein Süd interchange with a HH rental car plate. Luckily I had my vignette...or it could have been Xpensive.

I found a cheap way to Italy:

1) Take Garmisch autobahn from Munich to Garmisch... Take road towards Mittenwald and then to Innsbruck. Before Innsbruck get off highway at Zirl (before Austrian autobahn)
2) Proceed into Innsbruck, passing airport and head towards downtown.
3) Take Brenner landstrasse (rally drivers dream) to Italy. This way you miss the Brenner Mandatory toll.
4) Get onto Italian autostrada in Sterzing or stop before...and not right after border, because the Italians charge extra for vehicles getting onto the Autostada at the border.

It takes a bit longer...but the driving is fun and it's cheaper. If you're in a hurry take the Brenner and the Autobahn through Rosenheim.

A bit longer??? Kufstein to Brenner is 1 hour on a good day, the route you described would take 4. But more interesting it would be without a doubt.

that'll be the bit where my kids puke then
i'll pay for the brenner its less sress than getting the chunky bits out from between the seats.

TIP:
on a day like thursday get there before7:30 otherwise its jam prone at the mautstelle.
there's a mcdonalds pretty near for brekkies

Unless you drive a (German) company car...

YL6

Agree with Canuck, the old Landstrasse up Brenner is really nice!

ok, l did drive down to Nice last weekend and since you are all waiting patiently for my feedback then here it is:

Yep, the toll at the brenner is 8 Euros and the full total of tolls was over 70 Euros (ouch)

And, petrol is pretty expensive (but you knew that already). For anyone who may be doing a similar trip and is interested in the relative prices (approx) then the cost per litre is:

Austria 1,01
France 1,14
Germany 1,19
Italy 1,17
Switzerland 0,99

You can get extra info at
http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/motfue001.html

And next week l'll be discussing multi-crankshaft opposed steam engines 1847-1852...

please start now i dont think i could wait a week for that thread

It'll be a short discussion - the idea of creating multi crankshaft opposed steam engines didn't even arise until the mid 1980's when (UK) researchers were looking for alternatives to diesel engines for trains following the fuel crises of that era...

YL6

headed to lake garda last weekend, paid €7 something for austria vignette, €16 for brenner and another €15 toll to northern lake garda. but about getting gas:

if any of you are driving back from italy or austria (innsbruck) via garmish (mittenwald) and want to get gas, right as you turn off the A12 to go to zirl, it is a pretty damn steep, curvy climb (which we nearly had problems with as the VW van in front of us barely moved and we, in our heavily loaded ford diesel barely made it up in gear 1), then it flattens out, you'll come to what everyone thinks is the LAST gas station b4 you hit germany. and the lines are long!. a 100 m or so further on the left is another one, but keep on driving and you will hit the really last gas station after a few km or so. ironically, about 1 km furhter is the german border and diesel was .10 more expensive!

yup, austria and switzerland have the cheapest gas prices. sort of depressing for the border stations. they will go out of business.

oh and one last, last thing: driving via garmish to munich instead of taking the A8 saves you about 10 minutes (if driving 130 and no traffic!). we were two cars, met coincidentally at brenner and got home 10 minutes b4 they did. they took the A8.

watch out with the Vignette, I drove for 6 years without one until I got off luckily last year... they are really clamping down..

There is an old lorry-weighing area about 20km south of Kufstein, and they sometimes block the entire motorway and feed you through that area so there's no escape route.

And if you get past that, we even had piglets searching the cars in the ski lift car park! Luckily I was with my german flatmate who is very "brav" and has an annual pass...

Another time, we got through to the border with Slovenia and were stopped there, despite a German car we all had foreign passports and conveniently forgot how to speak german... they were fair.. we were allowed through, but could not return until we bought a Vignette! This was extremely fair, especially when you consider that 2 of us had left our passports in Slovenia!

Okay then,

Sunday we were driving back from Croatia through Austria. We had bought our Austrian Autobahn Vignette ten days before on June 10th. As I understand it it lasts for ten days until the 19th. We drove through on the 20th, ignorant of any problems.

We stopped at a Rasthof to arm the baby's food jar and eat. Came back and found a sticker fining us 120 Euros on the windscreen! Some no life had wandered round the car park knowing there might be families like ours with a day expired on the ticket.

In future we are thinking we will not bother buying a vignette at all, whizz through Österrreich on our way to Slovenia and the south, and not stop in any Rasthof in Austria. The unfriendliness of this act does not encourage any welcome over the border there.

Watch out for expired 10 day vignettes!

So let me get this straight; you are mad because you got a ticket for not following the law?

Yes we are pissed off because we are always law abiding and do buy our vignettes when over the border. It was just that we were one day over that made us angry. I always buy my U Bahn tickets exactly on the day they are needed too as I don't want to be caught. In this respect I am very goody goody! It just was not very clear on the Vignette when it expired if you look at the ticket you will see what I mean.

I have given up buying the Austrian Vigentte. If you do not stop in Austria then I can't see how they can catch you. And why stop in Austria ? The food is better in Italy so just drive straight for 2 hours.

Like when they do roadblocks and haul ALL vehicles off the motorway for inspection! Also at the Brenner tollgates.

We have gone through the Breener tollgates about 5 times with no vignette. They only seem interested in the Breener toll.

Blocking the motorway would work well but I've never seen it, and surely they can'T just do it at a whim

This is the Austrian traffic police's chance to serious fuck over German motorists so course they do it!

Either at the old weigh station near Kufstein mentioned somewhere above or another one between Salzburg and Linz I think.

i agree with grtho, as he is right
if you want to fcuk with the austrian police, or anyother countries traffik police or customs men, be my guest but dont write a new topic about unfairpolice.

also if caught with mobile in hand dont be over cheeky. happened to a porsche driving friend who arrogantly said..."yes yes ok so i was telephoning how much will it cost me!"...
or my brother in lawcheekily said once to a swiss customs officer after being asked if he had anything to declare.."do i have to declare these batteries!"...

both cases cost time roughly 90 min search and check), and you better have everything in your first aid kit or its fine-time...

oh dont forget your reflective jacket and to keep your lights on when driving on italian motorways

To start up this thread again...Don't give money to these bad-ass Austrians. Don't buy a Vignette unless you realy need it. Like I said earlier, just take the Brenner Landstrasse which is a bit slower than the Autobahn, but's its more fun and you same some money. The main thing is to keep the money out of the evil Austrians pocket...Booooahhaoooaaa.

Ahh, they are stilled pissed of about the Anschluss in 1938

near the top (Brenner) end its ok and quite fun but the bit near Innsbruck is tortuous so I'd recommend going about halfway up on the Autobahn (you don't ned a vignette for the Brenner aoutobahn - you just pay for the bit you have used)

A friend of mine drove through Austria without realizing that you had to buy one of these. He now has a bill for 400 EUR to show for it. We are wondering if there is any way to plead ignorance about the system. Are the signs on the highway about the vignettes easy to see and understand if you are an ignorant foreigner?

Ignorance of the law is not a valid defence.

There are multi-lingual and pictoral roadsigns at the border anyway!

"Sorry officer I didn't know"

"Here another EUR 100 fine for driving without care and attention because you obvioulsy weren't heeding the road signs"

Leading into Austria there are lots of signs about it.

Remember too, that you must have your car headlights switched on when driving in Austria - or that'll be another 50 Euros you didn't expect to spend.

And if you're on a motorbike you have to have a firstaid kit with you.

what about the reflector jacket is that now "pflicht" too. i cant remember but pack one anyway...

as to your question about the vignette. what car was he driving a german one? how long has he been in germany? he may if he's lucky get the fine reduced. but i wouldnt do a breath holding competition on the outcome. they've heard it all before a million times.

Jackrt's a pflicht in Italy too.
TBH, if I drove, I'd buy one and just have it in the car and your're covered.

There is NOTHING, not even a Leberkäs Semmel while watching re-runs of Kommisar Rex, that an Austrian copper likes more than bleeding drivers of German registered cars for money!

Firstly "unfortunately" there is no excuse for not having a "pickerl". The signs are clear enough, and they are at every border crossing, not just on motorways.

Secondly, you need a first aid kit for cars and motorbikes (here in Germany you don't need one for a bike).

Thirdly, you don't need a reflector jacket for a motorbike, just for a car. And they are rumoured to be relatively flexible on this particular point, which must go against the grain.

Fourthly, once they stop you (for which they do need a reasonable excuse), Austrian traffic cops tend to throw the book at you and then some, so don't give them a reason.