Re: right of way at a mini roundabout

[Tim+]

Looks like that's the case now. I've been looking at street view in the town that I remember and priority looks "conventional" now. Oddly though, on street view, Google have blurred out the "Priority a droit" text on many of the give way signs.

Tim

[Tim+]

Oh bollocks. I meant "Cedez le passage".

Tim

[NY]

I wonder how long it will be before the French authorities decide that all the drivers who grew up with prioirté a droit have died out, so signs countermanding that previous convention are no longer necessary.

Does France still mandate the use of those horrible yellow headlights, which required non-French visitors to paint their headlamps with yellow paint, under pain of causing French drivers to have apoplectic fits if they encounter a car with white (tungsten or HID) headlights?

I was intrigued to see a 1963 "commentary drive" by a member of the IAM as he drove from London to Bath along the A4. At one point in Newbury there was (and still is) a roundabout where the high street joins the A4. Several cars pull out from the side road into the A4 at the roundabout and the driver on the A4 makes no comment about this (though he's fairly scathing of other faults that he observes on his journey). I wonder if the rule about giving way to traffic coming from your right on a roundabout was less mandatory than it is now.

- the car in front gives way to about 5 vehicles coming from his left (without any "what's this idiot doing stopping on a roundabout" comment) and then the commentator says "and there's a driver slowing down and signalling me to go, so I shall thank him" as if the car joining the roundabout had priority but chose to let the commentator go in spite of that. How times have changed!

Likeways at

there's a car waiting to pull out from a side road, and the commentator says "he's waiting for me, so I'm going to accept his courtesy", as if there was any doubt that he would wait: it's the law, so why wouldn't he wait? I'd only comment if someone *didn't* wait - or at least say "watch that car and make sure he doesn't look as if he's creeping forwards" rather than acting all surprised that someone has actually obeyed the law.

One interesting thing about that run: he's very aggressive by modern standards at

when he encounters a car that won't move over from Lane 2 to Lane 1. He flashes his headlights twice and sounds his horn twice in long blasts. I'm not sure I'd have been *quite* as pushy as that, for fear of provoking a road rage attack: but then road rage probably didn't exist in those days, even though the driver did (not surprisingly) give him a V sign. I like his comment about "I'm keeping a lot of distance from him because we are travelling about 55" - I suppose that was quite fast in those days, although motorways actually had no speed limit in those days so you may well have encountered some high-performance cars going a *lot* faster than that.

[Marland]

Not since 1993 though you may still find the odd vehicle from before then fitted with them. It was the dastardly EU that told them to conform and not allow yellow for new vehicles after that year.

There was is a school of thought that yellow wasn?t as dazzling though the French are alleged to have introduced them to identify home vehicles from foreign ones.

What ever the reason before that date travelling in France at night was a bit strange with a yellow gloom everywhere with sodium road lighting and the yellow vehicle lights.

GH

[Scott]

I thought foreign vehicles visiting France had to be fitted with yellow filters, or tinted yellow. so all would look the same.

[Marland]

It wasn?t compulsory AFAIK,but advisable otherwise you had to put up with being flashed ,hooted,swore at,set on fire depending on how bad a mood a nearby Frenchman was in. The French introduced their regs just before WW2 and soon had some trouble with tear away drivers from a neighbouring country whom they just could not persuade to follow local conventions, many mucked about ruining fields while indulging in a bit of off-roading as well.

GH

[Tim Watts]

No.

All I needed last time was a beam shade sticker.