Driving in France

Speed limit 90 km/h outside of populated towns

Driving in France is a lot like driving in the United States - you drive on the right-hand side of the road. Other than that, most things are different. Here is a partial list of observations:

1. You must be ready for a roundabout at a moment's notice. Sure, the road might look like a limited-access highway at the moment (a dual carriageway as the Brits would say), but that doesn't mean that 1000 meters later those extra lanes and median won't disappear and be replaced with a tight roundabout. 

Approaching a roundabout

2. The speed limit is based more on the category of the road than the actual characteristics of the present stretch of road. The formula for determining speed limit is roughly as follows:

• Extremely slow (30 km/h = 18 mph) in populated towns. Populated towns in this case means anything from a couple of farmhouses with a single street crossing to a mini-flume ride of narrow cobblestone streets enclosed by sheer stone block walls.  
• Quite fast (90 km/h = 54 mph) outside of towns.  There may be narrow windy stretches, sharp turns, and sudden roundabouts, but the speed limit won't clue you in to those. These roads often had one lane each way and no median. 
• Really fast (130 km/h = 78 mph) on the best, widest roads (L'Autoroutes) which are comparable to interstates in the US except that French autoroutes have much higher tolls.
• Frustratingly slow on roads that act like a highway but aren't quite. These stretches remind me of a places like 35 mph on New York ave in DC, 45mph on Rte. 2 in Concord and Lincoln and 35mph on Memorial drive in Cambridge. 
• On exit ramps and approaching toll booths, they regulate your foot's every move on the accelerator and brake pedals. The speed limit gradually reduces from 110 km/h in 20 km/h increments every 100 meters. (110... 90...70...50...)

70 km/h at the start of the exit ramp

...and 100m later the speed limit drops to 50.

• The good news through all these speed limit shenanigans is that we have seen only one speed trap through 800km of driving. 

Sometimes roads go through tight arches...

...dense villages with no shoulder or sidewalk...

...and one-lane bridges.

3.  All the cars are diesel. Seriously all of them. Like over 90%. The french word for diesel is "Gazole"  (at lest according to the gas pumps. There was something labelled 98, something labeled 95, and something labelled Gazole which was both cheaper and smelled like diesel. So I happily put it in my car proudly marked DIESEL on the filler cap. Well, I put it in as proudly as I could after three of my credit cards had been rejected by the pay-at-the-pump machine and I had to back out and move to the cash only lane. Not entirely unlike our experience at the toll plaza on the way out of Paris last week.)

We have made a game out out of calling out "Gazole!" each time we see a Volkswagen or Audi that is a diesel. I believe we have seen one non-diesel out of at least 50 total vehicles. These are not vehicles normally sold as diesels in the USA -- Audi A6s and Q5s, A4 wagons, and VW new beetles. 

4. The cars here are tiny. Our car is a fairly compact, 4-door hatchback/station wagon that looks HUGE in both height and length when compared to most cars here.  Even Ford makes tiny diesel cars that are fairly common in France. With all the complaining in the USA about high fuel prices, US auto makers would be wise to introduce some of their overseas models back at home.  See (1) above -- the steering wheel is already on the correct side of the car. 

Our car.  Note the backwards-opening rear door.

More typically-sized 4-door hatchback car

5. The French seem to have a more strict (or at least more often observed) "keep right except to pass" rule on the highway. Combined with mandatory lower speed limits for trucks on all roads, all of the "keeping right except to pass"-ing creates a bit of dancing down the road. You pass one truck, then immediately pull back into the right lane and slow down behind the next truck, because often another car will pass you at this point, despite the 78 mph speed limit for cars.  Then you pull out to pass the next truck.  And if you forget to immediately pull back into the right hand lane, it's always possible that your passenger will remind you to.  Of course sometimes two trucks insist on passing each other as well -- one truck going 90 km/h, and the other truck going 91 km/h.

Two trucks passing each other.  Glacially. 

One truck passing two trucks.  This might take awhile...

6. Every French radio station plays high energy dance music. All of them. Except the one classical station we've found. And often there is only one radio station available a a given time. You know, like when you push the seek button and the radio wraps back around to the same station you were listening to. 

7. Parking meters take a break for lunch -- just like most French people and businesses. In La Rochelle, the meters ran from 9am-noon and from 2:30-5:30 pm. Combined with the two hour limit and first hour free, that means anyone parking after 10:00 am can park until 2:30 pm by paying for just a single hour. At least on Ile de Re (the beach destination) the meters did run all day and even on Sundays. 

8.  Roads that look like roads on google maps may not qualify as what Americans consider roads.  Sometimes two dirt tiretracks through a field is shown on the map just like normal roads.  The speed limit was probably 70 km/h here too.

Dirt path marked as a road on Google Maps.  The response of our french friends upon seeing this picture: "Oh yeah, that's definitely a road.  What's the problem?"

So all things considered we've fared quite well driving in France. We survived the gridlock and near-mirror-smashing merges leaving Paris, the $35 of tolls between Paris and Airvault, the $26 toll and ensuing congestion leading to the ONE LANE EACH WAY bridge to Ile de Re, parallel parking and the one-way labyrinth that is La Rochelle, and I even managed to drive illicitly in the left lane for awhile without being caught.

Approaching the toll booth ("Peage").  Get your folding money ready.

In the toll booth.  Coincidentally the car ahead of us is the same model as ours.

And we're two for two finding the closest possible on-street parking spot to our hotel in both La Rochelle and Cognac.