The Gases are taking a trip to France later this month and I’m going to rent a car to drive from Paris to Tour, then to the coast and back to Paris. I have never driven in France (though I have driven in Germany, Italy, England).
What traffic laws or customs exist in France that would not be immediately obvious from signs? Especially right of way issues.
When I was in Italy, I was waiting for a red light to turn green and the driver behind me was laying on the horn because there was no traffic coming across. I went, he followed, no problem. Maybe not the law, but the local custom.
I rented a car in Provence three years ago, and the only oddity I came across was roundabouts linking with other roundabouts and stop lights. Everything was signed, but as with all things, it took a few encounters before I was totally comfortable screaming around the corners like Jacques Villeneuve.
Hmm… You know how to drive stick, right? I wasn’t even offered automatic transmission as an option, and only realized when I got behind the wheel of my Megane that I’d have to use my left foot.
Make sure you have a variety of credit cards and cash around for the highway tollbooths too.
For starters, the signs are different (and not just that some are in French). I’d find a reference which explains the signs used in France/Europe and study them.
Parking is different. Most places you pay at a meter that is not next to your for a preset amount of time and then place a ticket from the meter on your dashboard.
How long will you be in France? How long will you have the car? (hint: you may not want to get the car until you are ready to leave Paris)
Yes, I drive a stick. Always have, until I caved and got a mini-van.
Yes, I am not going to get the car until we leave Paris, although I have to find out the ins and outs of renting a car in Paris rather than at the airport.
From the driving magazine I have on subscription, advice worth taking is as follows.
Watch the Gendarmes, as with any country traffic cops can be overzealous, but apparantly the French police more so. I’ve read there and elsewhere that for some motoring offences you can be told to leave your car at the side of the road and the police escort you home.
Toll booths (and this is how a lot of them around the world operate, not just in France) are used to log your speed along stretches of road, beware of how quickly you take to a toll road.
From a BBC holiday programme, drivers on the European continent are marked as somewhat rude to people used to driving on British roads, so I don’t know about how a Virginian would view someone flashing their lights repeatedly so they can overtake. To me and I suspect others in Northern Ireland at least, this would be quite aggressive driving, but in France its the norm.
Finally, the following link is entertaining, but should not be used as a guide to driving in Paris
You probably don’t want to take you car into Paris. They have quite a parallel parking method in Paris which involves hitting the car in front, then hitting the car in back, then parking bumper-to-bumper with the car in front.
I suggest you park the car at a train station, and take the train into Paris, which has a very efficient underground.
FTR: In Italy it is actually legal to run a red when the traffic is clear, and it freaked me out too.
In France (as elswhere in Europe) it’s considered quite important to allow faster drivers to pass when this is physically possible. This means that blocking the passing lane of a multi-lane highway when it’s possible to move right is viewed as very bad driving indeed.
You should thus take care to note what’s coming up from behind before you pull out to pass, and should move right as soon as possible after passing. If you make a habit of this, you’ll see few to no vehicles flashing their lights at you.
The one trap is the priorité à droite which still seems to apply in certain areas. Even if you are travelling on what looks to be the main road, a car from your right pulling out from a side street has right of way. It is a stupid system that seem designed to cause accidents and almost got me once.
*Southern * Virginians would bristle at this but *Northern * Virginia is the DC Metro area, with quite aggressive drivers. You can tell when a DC driver wants to pass because he is ramming your bumper. But then again we also have idiots that drive too slow in the fast lane and won’t budge, something about their God-given rights. When I was in England I was delighted at the consistency of drivers staying left except to pass.
This is exactly the type of “gotcha” that worries me. Thanks. But how do you know where it applies?
The urban speed limit (50kph) starts when you see the town sign at the side of the road. It ends when you see a similar sign with the name crossed through, as you leave town. Priorité à droite is not very common out on the open road. If you see a road-sign showing a yellow diamond it means that the main road has right of way.
I don’t know. That’s what they told me when I was in Rome. The Romans I were traveling with said to be careful when crossing the street because of this “rule”. But traffic was so heavy when I was there, I couldn’t imagine anyone actually using it.
You should try to figure out the whole mess with TOUTES DIRECTIONES and AUTRES DIRECTIONS. This translates as All Directions and Other Directions, and when you come to an intersection in the middle of nowhere, looking for signs pointing one way (e.g. to Paris) and another pointing the opposite (Lyon), it’s quite confusing to only get TD and AD.
Hopefully **claireobscure ** will be along and explain it once and for all.
But then again we also have idiots that drive too slow in the fast lane and won’t budge, something about their God-given rights. When I was in England I was delighted at the consistency of drivers staying left except to pass.