Driving in France is fun!
Yes, we're on the road a lot this week.
One of the great questions that we faced before leaving Canada was how challenging it would be to drive in France. Certainly we imagined a country full of angry, irate frenchmen in tiny cars honking and screaming at each other in traffic jams. Maybe that is true of Paris, but down in the Dordoigne where we’ve landed it’s quite different.
Thus far we’ve survived the positively insane construction around the Bordeaux airport. If you’re familiar with the Marine Drive construction in Vancouver, or the years long Cambie Street subway construction, this is the same, except worse. Imagine Vancouver construction, but with traffic circles!
As it turns out those French traffic circles are truly wonderful things that let everyone get off in the right direction, or lets them circle around a second time if they miss the intended road. No traffic lights but they also slow the pace of the traffic as well. They are an idea that should be adopted everywhere, if for no other reason that they would help municipal governments to spend less money maintaining hundreds of traffic lights, and because you have many less cars sitting idle while stopped at intersections.
French roads vary dramatically from multilane highways, to two lane secondary roads, to one lane country roads. The latter two are especially fun because they have lots of turns and twists, and force you to really pay attention to the road and drive. These are like the roads that I grew up with, and it’s been a delight to return to them.
Even better though are the streets of towns and cities, built centuries ago for goat carts or roman chariots, and now accommodating cars and parking. No Canadian city would build a road this narrow, and no Canadian would drive down them, but it works. Honestly it’s amazing if you’re used to our ever wider and wider Canadian streets and highways.
The final thing that I’ve really been enjoying is the French approach to speed limits: it’s consistent! Highways: 110kmh. Regional roads: 90kmh. Towns: 50kmh. Narrow streets and built up areas: 30kmh. It’s always the same, and always predictable. Plus there are signs telling you when one zone ends and another begins. Unlike in Canada you never find yourself guessing what speed you need to travel.
And, despite the mythology, we’ve found that French drivers are reasonably polite, and drive right at the speed limit. It’s wonderful!
This was delightful to read!
We approached traffic circles ourselves with great trepidation. Once we'd mastered them, however, we came home with the same thoughts, "Canada needs these everywhere!" Indeed, we're seeing more of them now but the size of them here in Alberta varies so greatly that, true to Albertan nature, some drivers just hop right over the smaller ones as if navigating an upside down pothole rather than circling turn properly.
We didn't dare attempt the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe but left the rentals and our own lacking, meandering driving skills to the countrysides and highways. We gave cab drivers our fares in the city. They well earn their pay, we thought. We did go back down on foot to stand for well over an hour, watching as we tried to discern the technique and assimilate ourselves to the regulations involving a level of skill and vehicular dance that the local drivers made it appear so smooth. We would unquestionably have appeared more like Mr Bean trying our own hands at it.
Loving these observations! Look forward to seeing your posts in my inbox. Bravo!