Been driving around France this past couple of weeks and noticed something startling.
Toll Motorways. (Dr. Jekyll)
Great. Smooth, quick, safe progress. Locals driving with great manners and altogether very enjoyable.
N-Roads (M. Hyde)
Free. Almost killed twice in the space of twenty minutes by some frankly outrageous driving by the natives and lots of the driving better suited to demolition derbies than motoring.
Can't work out what happens to a 307 when faced with a 90km/h limit, but it's an eye opener.
So if you're over there, enjoy the motorways but get a couple of spare sets of eyes to see in the back of your head and both sides, simultaneously.
--
Lee
MINI adventure in progress
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From my experience, French driving standards are about the same as here - though I haven't driven in Paris!
There is, however, one dangerous phenomenon on busy sections of the long straight single-carriagways. Some drivers treat the oncoming lane as a fast lane, like on a dual carriageway. They stay out to pass a long line of slower traffic, just dodging back in when an oncoming vehicle gets close, then straight back out again when the coast is clear. You dont't see that so much here because there aren't so many long straight stretches.
Even HGV drivers do this. Sometimes you see a line of cars following an artic down the wrong side of the road. If the artic dodges in at the last minute to avoid another heavy coming the other way, the following cars have nowhere to go and risk being mown down like skittles.
Most of my trips to France have been to the LeMans 24 hour race, and the worst drivers on the way down through northern France are usually Brits in TVRs, Lotuses, etc. Some lunatic Dutch too.
Cheers
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Lee, agree completely (just returned myself this weekend). The Toll roads and autoroutes are brilliant even the lorries seem happy to sit behind each other and only pull out when there is plenty of room ( to be fair the roads are much straighter so its easier to judge), but the N roads are a different story.
One thing I have noticed when travelling abroad several times now that I dont experience in the UK is when you pass a lorry you seem to 'bounce' off the front of them, by that I mean you need to correct the steering, I assume this is a type of bow wave of air pressure, the strange thing is I never notice this in the UK do French trucks travel quicker and therefore create a bigger 'wave'?
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>>One thing I have noticed when travelling abroad several times now that I don't experience in the UK is when you pass a lorry you seem to 'bounce' off the front of them.
Is this because you're used to passing lorries on their right over here and have learned to compensate for the 'bounce' automatically? In France you're passing them on the left and the camber is the opposite way too.
Cheers, SS
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French lorries are limted to 90Kph, same as their UK counterparts (and are all lorries originating from within the EU).
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I too have noticed the "bounce" on the bow wave. It's going to be a whole lot more pronounced when we next head over there on Boxing day as we'll be "trucking" in the L200; much more susceptible to crosswinds than the 156.
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