The 2024 Rendezvous

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

Now, now Gerard! The French drivers are not that bad - ever been to Britain?

Having said that, I (or rather we) did something I never thought I would ever do - report another driver.

A Renault Trafic mini-bus turned out of a school ahead of us & soon became apparent all was not well. It's a twisty road & he was travelling far too fast for a van - it wasn't long before he started putting the nearside rear wheel into the ditch, almost losing it at least once. When we came to Avesnes-le-Comte he drove straight through a group teenagers on a pedestrian crossing, then stopped & shouted at them (they'd done nothing wrong). Back out of town he again had a couple of grassy moments, at which point Michele said she had seen enough & was going to call the Gendarmerie. Literally whilst she was on the 'phone he drove straight through a red light, & then at the next village was out of control through the 'bus stop' chicane at the village entry, almost T-boning a Clio coming the other way. Fortunately, as we approached a roundabout where the road crosses a dual carriageway, I spotted blue lights coming the other way - as they came one side of the roundabout the mini-bus went the other but they spotted him & did a very quick u-turn & stopped him.

We didn't stop but when I returned two hours later the mini-bus was still there so I assume they had nicked him for something.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Tel 911S

I Have driven through France many hundreds of times , and normally no problems with the drivers .
The main exception was the Peripherique , where the old game was to count the number of undamaged cars , and it was normally only a small amount .

But always remember what George Carlin said . "The average driver is not very good , Which means half of them are worse that that "

I spent a skiing season near Grenoble in 1989/90, and sometimes popped back to the UK a couple of times a month, setting off on a Friday afternoon and back by Sunday evening. And I used to thoroughly enjoy driving around the Peripherique, but quickly realised that the safest way was to drive as quickly as possible and just as madly as the locals.

Would join it from the A1 and come off again to get on the link road down to the A6, and then on all the way to Lyon. It was a joy to drive on the Autoroutes, especially the toll ones, apart from the cost of course, because, certainly back then, the gendarmerie rarely if ever patrolled so one could put one's foot down. The way to cheat the average speed checks at the booths was to stop at the last service area before the toll exit, and freshen up, have a cup of excellent coffee, fill up the petrol tank again and then gently drive on to the exit booth.

What I always thought was most considerate was the fact the they always put a big sign up on the side of the autoroute to tell drivers that they were approaching the last services before the toll booths. Jolly decent chaps! Oh, and best time achieved was 11.5 hours from Hertfordshire to Les Deux Alpes using the Hovercraft to cross the Channel.