h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are even detector detector detectors but they're not just illegal, they're highly illegal.

At traffic lights make eyes at your fellow travellers whilst holding on clutch. On reaction engage clutch. Enjoy!

(continuing from last post)...

... and drive off rapidly, straight into the side of another idiot who shot the lights going the other way.

Roundabouts (and the French obsession with them) ought to be mentioned - even if only as an afterthought in the 'driving on the right' section...

While I'm at it, what about the order of traffic lights (no amber after red) and the sometimes less-than-obvious signage, especially on motorways. Perhaps advise to be aware of the junctiion before the one desired in order that the correct one is then anticipated...

Whoami?

What's the big deal with Roundabouts? They work just the same as in the UK and Ireland, except that you go round to the right instead of to the left. British drivers will notice that there are very few roundabouts in France compared with as home. So I don't think they're worth mentioning.

Signs on motorways - I never noticed anything special about them, except that they are in km and m rather than in miles and yards.

The sequence of traffic lights it Green, Amber, Red, Green, Amber, Red etc. Again, it's pretty obvious and doesn't really merit an explanation.

A point about navigating in France that may be germane to the entry.

The main difference between British road signs and French ones is the use of road numbers. In Britain, if there are two alternative ways of getting from (for example) Dagenham to Southend on two different roads, they'd be signposted 'Southend A13' and 'Southend A127'. You can pick the route you want to take on a map, select the road you want and follow it by number.

The difference in France is that while road numbers exist on maps, they're not usually used for navigation and aren't often listed on signs. In the same situation in France, the road the authorities think of as the better road, the one they want you to use (the A127, probably) would be signposted 'Southend' in green. So if you wanted to go to Southend on the A13, you'd have to try and pick out another place along the A13 between Dagenham and Southend, and try and find a white sign pointing you in that direction. The trouble is, you could be looking for any one of Grays, Thurrock, Pitsea, Thundersley, Hadleigh, Leigh-on-Sea, Chalkwell or Prittlewell.

Thoughts?

I'd be happy to try and rewrite that in a more coherent way to be chucked into the entry, if you think it worthwhile.

I'll let Whisky be the judge of whether that is worth putting in or not. I haven't driven in the UK much, and the French method is very like the Irish one.

>> What's the big deal with Roundabouts? They work just the same as in the UK and Ireland, except that you go round to the right instead of to the left.

Exactly. It is scary when your father drives the car (and caravan off of the ferry and goes the wrong way around one. At 3am. Meanwhile, I dispute that the french have few roundabouts. They are becoming ever-more prevalent, particularly in tourist areas.

Traffic lights: Ah, but what about the infamous flashing amber in place of green - the french for 'go on then, if you dare', or something like that.

My experience of the péripherique suggests that junctions are not always meticulously signed in advance. Then again, the navigator was the same as has towed a caravan through the old town area of Auxerre due to one wrong turn.

Whoami?

Yellow diamonds?

Reference road numbers... actually, the road numbers usually are marked on junctions/roundabouts...

On top of the signs pointing out the direction of the towns is either a small yellow panel with black lettering for a D(epartemental) road or (and I'm not 100% sure about the colours here) Red with white lettering for a 'Route Nationale' (N) road...

In addition you also have 'E' numbers on motorways - there's a Europe wide M/way identification system - but to be honest, no-one uses it yet!

Oh, and as to the thing about roundabouts... I personally wouldn't think it's necessary to put in... apologies in advance to your dad whoami... but I'd have thought that 'DRIVE ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE ROAD' would be enough of a warning... to be honest, I'd have thought it pretty difficult to mess up a roundabout.. on approaching the roundabout the lane systems push you to the right, the road signs are visible to the right, the rest of the traffic is heading to the right and going to the left means you're crossing the path of traffic coming off at the interchange you've just come out of...

In my, admitedly fairly limited, experience of driving in France the roundabouts felt just the same as British one. The only exception was the first time I came across a roundabout where I was the only car there. At that point I did need to think for a moment to get the manouvre reversed in my head before progressing.

OK, I'll let that drop and settle for the *yellow diamonds*...

Whoami?

According to Underhill, Gazole is the French for Diesel. Can anybody confirm this?

On another note... to Gnomon and the rest of you here... is it worth inserting a paragraph on the fun that can be had driving a left-hand drive vehicle for the first time (i.e. when you get off the plane and pick up a hire-car)... a few simple pointers that a lot of people aren't aware of... for example...?

The pedals _do_ work the same way as a right hand drive car (accelerator to the right) and the gears are the same (1st gear - up and left).

For the first few miles (or even days) try driving with your hand on the gear lever... whilst this isn't usually advisable, in the event you need to change gears quickly you'll find that if you've always driven right hand drive vehicles and are faced with the need to make an 'immediate' gear change, you'll automatically reach for the gear lever with your left hand (thus attempting to open the driver's door instead of changing gear).

And of course, when faced with _any_ new car, it's always best to spend ten minutes in the car park figuring out how to operate the various functions (lights, wipers, etc...) there's nothing more likely to cause an accident than a driver, driving in a strange country, on the wrong side of the road, who's desparately searching all the buttons on an strange dashboard looking for the wiper switch instead of looking at the road ahead.

Positioning the vehicle on the road:
when driving a right hand drive car, the easiest way is to position yourself with respect to the right hand kerb, when driving a left hand drive car, position yourself by looking at the lines in the centre of the road.

Yup Gnomon - Gazole is DERV (diesel)

If you're interested... the pumps are colour coded - green for unleaded - yellow for diesel (Leaded fuel is becoming more and more rare over here so if you've an old car then stock up on fuel additives to throw in the tank before filling up with unleaded)

Oh, and if you're in any doubt, don't use 'Sans Plomb 95' use the 98 (95 is only suitable for vehicles with a catalytic converter and a _modern_ engine)

Is there any recognised way of saying "thank you" to drivers who accomodate you on the road, such as moving into a slow lane to let you pass? In Ireland it is fairly standard practice to briefly hit your warning indicators at the car you have just passed. This is usually acknowledged by a brief flash of their headlights. I did this in France and quickly realised that they hadn't a clue what I was on about!

Woodpigeon

The trouble is - that would assume that someone in France is actually going to be polite to you - don't wait for it to happen, you might be around a loooooonngg time

I've found that indicator use like that only works with HGV drivers anyway...

Oh, one other pointer for motorway driving I've just thought of... (and this one _really_ should go in...)

Many older French drivers were taught when French motorways were almost exclusively 2-lane affairs, thus, they were taught that when overtaking on a motorway you should signal to pull out (left indicator) and continue to signal until you have overtaken the slower vehicle before cancelling your indicator and signalling right to pull back into the slower lane...

This makes things very awkward on 3-lane motorways as you will quite often come across someone in the middle lane, overtaking a slower vehicle, but who is signalling as if they were about to pull out into the fast lane... This is now of course bad practice, but it is one you should be aware of as you are bound to run across it.