[motaman]

Just been reading of going to France. I have been going for a few years and I keep hearing of the danger of aires. How many of our 35000 members have been robbed as opposed to '' hearing of someone being robbed''. Are there any statistics?
gary

 

[firewood]

no never been going 15yrs and no problems.in fact i have had more problems in the uk .only last week we were getting a lot of griff of some welsh git for driveing through a cardigan town

 

[bognormike]

don't get your aires in a twist! Autoroute aires are risky, general town / village aire de camping cars are normally fine :wink:

 

[hmh]

France Touring 2 - Aires and Aires

As Bognormike says, there are different sorts of Aires ( it just means "area").

So, Motorway Services are called "Aires", but amongst the ones with filling stations, cafés etc, are tiny ones with just a bunch of picnic tables and a loo. They might well have a Campervan sign, but that just means you can empty your cassette etc there, and obviously park up if you like.

Neither of these are recommended for overnighting, but especially not the picnic table / loo variety.

The Aires we all use and love are Aires de Camping Cars, which are carparks of various sorts, designated by the municipality for our use, or provided by a campervan shop, supermarket etc., some with facilities, some without, some free, others not.

It is more complex than that, I hope that gives the gist of it.

Helen

 

[Grizzly]

Good question.

We're told to avoid the motorway aires as being risky but are they ? Are there statistics to show this or is it just "received wisdom" ? We've rejected some very unsafe-feeling non-motorway aires that are recommended in the Aires de Services Camping Cars book and Guida Camper and we've seen some good looking motorway ones.

We came across a lovely motorway one last week at the aire going north on the A75 just before the aire de Garabit. It was clearly expecting motorhomes to overnight there giving them their own area with lights, CCTV, picnic tables, barrier to prevent lorries, showers and loos. It also had excellent views. There were 2 vans there with space for umpteen more.

(Edit: it was aire des Volcans, on the north side)

How many lorries are broken into and they clearly spend whole weekends at motorway aires ? Surely a lorry - with a commercial load- is more tempting to a potential thief and so, if it was a problem, lorries would weekend elsewhere ?

G

 

[locovan]

I have said so many times that, we camped in the Service Stations all the way to Spain.
We always went to the kiosk or shop and told them we were there (we only met another M/H once)
We parked in a lit up area.
It is common sense and maybe a lot of luck but we would do it again.
The Somme Service Station was our favourite one.
Barcalona was ok even.

 

[locovan]

The Somme Service Station
When driving down the A 16 motorway, look out for the windturbine: it is the unmistakable sign that the Baie de Somme motorway service station is coming up.

 

[Vennwood]

Just been reading of going to France. I have been going for a few years and I keep hearing of the danger of aires. How many of our 35000 members have been robbed as opposed to '' hearing of someone being robbed''. Are there any statistics?
gary

We have been using motorway Aires for over 20 years now and never had a problem. We've never parked in Aires that didn't have lights or trucks around. If on motorways we have only stopped late at night and left early in the morning. All other times we use Aires from either one MHF, in All the Aires or the Official Guide books.

Like many of these topics its a matter of commonsense, you wouldn't park anywhere that you didn't feel comfortable with.

I tend to view this topic in the same light as the gas attack one - everyone knows of somebody that has been either robbed or gassed - but not actually themselves. Thankfully the insurance companies and police don't appear to be so swamped with victims that the feel the need to raise premiums or ban MH's from Aires

 

[motaman]

thanks for the replies guys ,as i said i have been going to france for years,several times in a year sometimes on motorcycles as well as motorhomes using aires, its not a case of ''getting my aires in a twist''. i simply would like to know is there any one that has been robbed and is it as big a problem as it is made out to be .it would be interesting to know just how many of the 35000 of us have experienced this. maybe its like the ''gassing'' that every so often rears its head ,no one seems to have experienced this but many people seem to of heard of someone that has
gary