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Just returned from a cracking trip to France on my motorbike. The roads/drivers were no problem , just could not get my head around 'priorite a droite' (hope I have spelt this correctly!) though, what is the point of this rule? I only ask as I cannot see why users of minor roads should have 'priority' over users of some main roads - just seems downright dangerous to me!
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Priorité a droite is slowly being phased out in much of France. One possible explanation, not confirmed by anything, is that traffic approaching the roundabout was originally travelling faster than the vehicles on it. Braking efficiency has not always been what it is today. So priorité a droite may have been considered the safer option.
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There isn't any point. You are quite right, it is not only downright dangerous but completely bonkers as well.
The French don't seem to have realised that if you have to put up large warning notices (some places do) for a system that isn't instinctive then there must be something basically wrong with that system.
Many areas don't use it any more, but some do - and even, in my opinion, use it for a form of traffic calming because everyone has to approach every junction very cautiously - which makes the situation even worse because you are never quite sure what to do.
My advice is be very, very careful in towns, especially those laid out in regular blocks on the Napoleonic principal and at crossroads in the middle of nowhere.
My only guess for the system's existence is that Napoleon thought it was a good idea for ox carts so it went into his Civil Code and the fonctionnaires are still arguing over repealing it.
Please be aware of this dangerous situation, everyone heading for France this summer (if anyone is - thanks to fuel prices and the strong Euro most of the B and Bs around here are so quiet it's unreal).
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So which is better - a rule to determine who has priority or the UK "in side roads and country lanes look out for unmarked junctions where nobody has priority"?
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I cannot see why users of minor roads should have 'priority' over users of some main
roads
They don't automatically, although many drivers behave as if they do, as used to be the case. This is no doubt why one sees so many cars in France with their front doors bashed in!
Your priority on a main road is indicated by a white diamond with a yellow centre, meaning have priority at all intersections apart from those indicated by a red-bordered triangle with a black cross in it, where you give way to the right. Your priority ends when the yellow diamond sign has a black band across it.
Even when you have priority, many French drivers coming from the right have the unnerving habit of speeding right up to the edge of the main road, perhaps in the hope of scaring a timid GB ("Grand Bete" / silly ass, or "Guele de Bois"/ hangover) into giving way.
In the absence of the triangle, a vehicle emerging from your right between a pair of short white posts with red bands near the top has priority and will usually take it without bothering to look left.
Next time, I suggest you get a copy of the excellent "Code Rouseau de la Route" from the nearest newsagent ("maison de presse"). It is much clearer than our own Highway Code.
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Thanks for all the feedback here!
I agree that putting signs up to state whether the rule does/does not apply is mad!
I did not notice any short white posts with red bands (eek!) , I will get a copy of 'Code Rouseau de la Route' for my next trip over.
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Does it cause the carnage that one would imagine, or do they somehow seem to be able to cope with the variations in the rule?
Edited by Bill Payer on 20/06/2008 at 16:35
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I must say that on the several occasions I have driven about in France, including a bit more Paris than I would really have liked, this priority rule has never caused any problem to me. But perhaps I am lucky. I do remember an aunt and uncle who were batting down a route nationale in an American Ford V8 in the fifties when a rural vehicle of some sort, perhaps a tractor and trailer, blundered into their path regardless causing them to take to the grass verge at high speed. No lines of poplars just there fortunately.
Priorite a droite for British roundabouts and silly little road buttons seems completely rational and ought to work. But around 10 per cent of drivers, perhaps more, are apparently unaware of it. It's a minefield out there.
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I once heard it postulated that a possible reason why France has so many tree lined roads is as a courtesy to past and potential invading armies so they can march in the shade. ;-)
Romans marched on the left I think. Something to do with having your sword hand nearest the enemy I believe. Same with knights when jousting I seem to recall for no useful reason. We were in Cyprus recently and I had forgotten that they drive on the left. Well they actually drive on both sides fairly randomly but they are supposed to keep left.
Never had a problem with the "right has priority" rule in France. I just tend to work on the assumption that all other drivers are idiots or are trying to kill me in any country.
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'Prioritè à droite' is not being phased out and remains in the 'Code de la Route'. However the authorites in charge of a road - in town the local authority - can use their powers to suspend it on a junction by junction basis. So you can have 9 successive junctions where the road on your right has a 'give way' (cédez le passage') sign and find that the tenth junction has 'normal' priority.
Beware when traffic lights off-peak are flashing orange - here 'normal' priority (from the right) will prevail. This is supposed to avoid delaying traffic off-peak, which seems rather strange considering that there are no delays off-peak.
In 30 years of living and driving in France, I have never found anyone capable of explaining why in modern driving conditions, it's considered acceptable to make people give way without warning them that they have to. Its main effect seems to be to keep body shops busy repairing minor crashes.
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Give way to the right still exists, although very watered down, in Spain and Germany. At a junction where priority is not marked, by default the rule is to give way to the right. (Saves the authorities a fortune in road signs!)
It is actually easier to remember to watch out for "priority" traffic coming from what is the car's nearside. However, there is a problem. Several, in fact. A driver may not instantly know that s/he actually has priority over the car approaching from their left (depending on the road layout, general visibility, etc.) In Spain, "vertical" markings (sign posts) take priority over "horizontal" (painted on the road) but there may be missing signs, scuffed paint, poor visibility, etc. The overall effect is to slow cars down and put everyone on full alert.
In Britain an "ambiguous" junction would lead to an endless "After you, no after YOU" scenario, whereas in Spain and especially Germany the bigger, bolder car and driver brazens it out if a push-in manoeuvre can be done without actually damaging the car.
Priorité à droite was invented way before roundabouts, hence poor lane discipline, lack of indicator signals and so on in countries where roundabouts are scarce and fairly new technology.
Best system I have ever seen, common in USA and South Africa, is the "four way stop street." Cars stop dead on the STOP line and take their turn to set off, with the first driver to arrive always going first.
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There seems to be quite a few places in Holland where it applies as well.
I could never understand why traffic on the main road was stopping to let me out of a tiny side road until I'd been there a few months and found out it was one of the few left in that town.
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I think it's still the norm in Belgium too. I saw some incredible near misses when I was there a bit ago.
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In what is now 8 years of trips to France I have only "experienced" this once - and I had priority and did not realise!
It was in Arras.
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The sword hand is indeed, so I've always understood, the reason we remain drivers on the left - most others changed, but don't know why.
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The sword hand is indeed so I've always understood the reason we remain drivers on the left - most others changed but don't know why.
The change from left to right is usually ascribed to Napolean. The European countries he didn't conquer continued to drive on the left until Hitler finished the job. Sweden changed because they felt left out. We have the Channel so it doesn't matter.
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I recall the same issue when I was based in Germany where if a certain road sign had 2 slashes across it, you gave way to minor road traffic coming onto the main road.
Of course, over here in the UK, priority is granted to the most aggressive, and who can get away with it.
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The driving on the left/right topic has an interesting history. 40% of the world's population lives in a country that drives on the left; historically because of the sword hand/mounting a horse ritual, most countries naturally rode/drove on the left to start with. The factors which persuaded countries to "move over" (in both directions!) include:
* Napoleon being left handed and making his troops march on the right
* A rejection of "colonial" influence (former British colonies in North America switching to the right as a symbol of their independence; mass production of the Model T - LHD - inevitably caused the trend of LHD and driving on the right to spread). Bahrain, as one example, changed upon independence.
* colonisation and occupation (Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria were occupied and forced to change... in "The Sound of Music", Colonel von Trapp has a RHD car consistent with the time); Likewise former colonies of Portugal (Mozambique) and the Netherlands (Indonesia) - which both drove on the left till the 1920s - still drive on the left. Japan changed to the left when British influence was strong there.
* desire to standardise: Just as national time ones came in with the spread of the railways, around 1925 a lot of cities and countries in Europe switched vehicle traffic over fully: As well as Portugal and the Netherlands, Madrid and rural Italy drove on the left (Barcelona and Italian cities on the right!) With the growth of car transport this chaos could not continue! Sweden finally changed in 1967.
There are still a lot of exceptions around, such as the terrifying long distance bus in the Andes which is RHD so that the driver can see right to the edge of the precipice; street sweepers and US postal vans are also RHD for the drivers' convenience.
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Just back from a long weekend visiting some of the WW1 cemeteries and battlefields (immensely moving, but that's another story), I was looking out for priorite a droite but never came across it: most minor roads seemed to be marked as such.
I saw more examples of bad driving (by British drivers) in the first few minutes after arriving at Dover than in the whole of the time in France and Belgium.
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In our "safety briefing" before we went this came up as a possible problem. All of us were experienced motorcyclists (old not bold) and the view was that we assumed the worst in towns
and that a scan of the junction was required, looking for visual clues such as a give way or stop sign or road markings, if they were absent we assumed it had right of way over the main road and acted accordingly.
The French don't seem to have had the hang of skid resistant white paint - I saw two "moments" by other bikers in perfect weather where a little too much throttle caused a breakaway....scary
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a little too much throttle caused a breakaway....scary
I came within two inches, literally, of hitting a biker once whose high-powered machine had simply shot out from under him as he turned right into Doughty Street and opened the throttle.
Waiting at the lights before Chelsea Bridge once in the seventies or eighties, I saw a lorry making a hard right onto the bridge with (again, absolutely literally) gallons of diesel overflowing from its tank onto the road. You wouldn't have wanted to make the same turn on a bike within quite a few hours.
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"There are still a lot of exceptions around, such as the terrifying long distance bus in the Andes which is RHD so that the driver can see right to the edge of the precipice"
I'm sure I remember, in the '70s and '80s seeing lots of Italian trucks in the Alps/Dolomites which were RHD for the same reason - does it still apply?
Avant, was in N France recently and "discovered" a priorite a droite road in Boulogne when someone just pulled out in front of me with no warning. The "road" she came out of was an access to a block of flats car park - didn't even look like a road. Subsequent use of same road was done at very low speed - well below limit!
Trouble with this system is not the system itself, but the fact that it seems to be completely unpredictable - some places have "p a d" and others don't - yes I know that it is usually signed, but usually immediately after previous junction and if you are on a "main road " with few junctions it can come as a surprise a few miles later. There is an awful one on N43 near La Capelle - you have done 50 Km with priority and then suddenly a junction with a minor road is non-priority.
Best to assume in towns that you don't have priority - though sometimes you then stop and and a froggy impatiently waves you out because you have priority - in which case just give an apologetic wave.
A bientot
Phil
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See story on Telegraph website today (24th) re a town in Germany that has received an EU grant to do away with all its road signs and introduce priority from the right as a road safety measure...
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I have driven in France once or twice a year for the past 20 years and never had a problem, but I do tend to be cautious at junctions.
As for the origin of PAD I seem to remember in the dim and distant past someone telling me that was introduced for farmers and drivers of slow/poor accelerating agricultural vehicles as it was easier for traffic approaching a junction to slow down than it was for a tractor or similar vehicle approaching the road to stop and then continue. This was probably in the days when tractors were as common as cars, particularly in the countryside.
C'est vrai? Je ne sais pas.
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It is worth remembering that the X (in a red triangle) before a junction actually signifies PaD. Quite common to see it on rural D roads, when the 'minor' road is on your right - certainly in '34'.
Most of the locals dont even know what it means other than junction ! Worrying.
pmh
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Perhaps it's to ensure that all drivers get a fair crack of the whip. When there's a continuous flow of traffic on the major road it might otherwise be difficult to get out of a side road.
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For those who have not found it see
www1.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/signaux/famille.asp?sFamille=9&sSFamille
=0
I was intending to correct the comment about the cross on the red bordered triangle but see that pmh is correct.
Best of them is
www1.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/signaux/detail.asp?sSignal=2611
Edited by ijws15 on 24/06/2008 at 19:11
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Greetings all! First post here.
I have driven a number of times in the British Isles but our trip over this time will involve picking up our motor at Heathrow and later crossing the Channel into France and spending quite a bit of time there. What I'm hearing about the French driving rules and regulations concerns me and I was wondering if anyone could recommend a site that explains the rules and signs of the road in English. Many thanks.
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I have a problem when driving in Spain, turning left onto a major road where you're expected to use the centre of the road as an acceleration lane!
It usually takes me a couple of days (with locals tooting behind) to get used to it.
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This explains why last week driving in the south of France our convoy (articulated lorry, car, us, 2nd artic) got beeped at by a car, at a junction on the right, obviously expecting to be let out.... obviously they saw sense rather than be wiped out...
Steve
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mil1297
Try entering "french highway code in english" into Google, you will some useful hits and at least one forum to discuss the matter.
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I typed in the French Highway Code in English but apart from people trying to sell me a book and DVD for 70 Euros I didn't see that much. The one forum that I turned up consisted largely of people making casual observations and nothing really substantive. Is there nothing online after all?
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If you can read French, try typing Code Rousseau. The French Bookshop in London might help but I have lost its details.
I wish the right-priority rule appled in the UK as drivers seem often unsure at junctions. Effectively, it does apply in roundabouts although the actual rule is, priority to anyone already in one, hence coming from the right.
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I should have added that the excellent illustrations alone should tell you most of what you want to know, even if you can't read the French text.
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Let me come to the defense...
It is a brilliant rule, where the priority is clearly stated without the need for yet more signs or roadmarking (which can easily be obscured).
It clearly makes sense when small roads meet, if one of the roads is bigger then it has the added advantage to act as a traffic calming measure. In that it is actually VERY SIMILAR to a mini-roundabout in the UK.
For example I know a road which links two main roads. At both main road ends everything is clearly signed, but the road is an ideal rat run. However half way down there is a dead end on the right. No signs - nothing. This has the desired effect to slow down the odd traffic on the link road. Now clearly if you want to pull out of the dead end road you still should look, as every country has its allocation of stupid drivers.
Now I understand if your are a foreigner and don't know the area this can be difficult, as we in the UK are used to roadmarkings, but then again if you miss the road then you were to fast.
DinUK
Edited by DinUK on 15/08/2009 at 11:48
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I wish the right-priority rule appled in the UK as drivers seem often unsure at junctions.
No thanks... the road markings/signs over here are normally perfectly clear and in most cases the main road has priority which is perfectly logical... using the French system would be a backward step... ask yourself why only the French do it!
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This makes me wonder; Have the French changed the law to allow turning right at a red light?
I got beeped from behind more than once on my last trip.
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a backward step... ask yourself why only the French do it!
They don't - it's reasonably common across Europe.
As others have said - it's a traffic calming measure, though introduced before such a term was invented.
It forces drivers on the 'main' road to be more attentive than they maybe would be otherwise, and it prevents long queues on minor roads where there's a heavy traffic flow on the main road being joined. It achieves the same effect as traffic lights or a roundabout without the expense of installing either of those things.
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There was an urban myth current at the time when roundabout priority was changed in the UK that they copied the French "give way to the right" rule but forgot that we drive on the opposite side.
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>> a backward step... ask yourself why only the French do it! >> They don't - it's reasonably common across Europe.
I've re-read the thread and notice one or two others have said that it is seen in Germany and Belgium as well, whilst it might be seen outside France its not "common", in fact its quite rare...
Personally I don't see the benefit in most cases... you say its "traffic calming" but to give priority to traffic thats stationary rather than that which is flowing is hardly efficient, and is dangerous... however in certain circumstances a lack of road signs/markings can have a beneficial effect... I noticed that some small villages in Bavaria had gone down that road (so to speak), so I suppose that is what you refer to... In major towns and cities and on NSR roads it would be a backward step, though.
Now the sign on traffic lights allowing you to turn left on red (but giving way to other traffic if need be) is a very good idea and one we could copy over here to improve traffic flow.
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Hello mjl. Try tinyurl.com/krphaw also if you go onto the RAC or AA sites you will find advice on driving abroad.
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It's all a plot to wipe out les Anglaise tourists!
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