French national service ended in the 1990’s.
Some served in the Gendarmerie too. I was talking with one young Gendarme at a controle and he was on national service. Some had stripes on their trousers at that time, when regulars didn’t. A young german driver told me that he had served in ambulances for 2 yrs insted of 1 yr in the army.
In the UK ambulances used to be part of the Fire Brigade too. They split after WW2 I think.
That’s an interesting post.
Long one hits are doable but not a car load of passengers and lots of traffic.Running over night is good.
I’ll do a regular run down to Monza at end of month to see a GT race then probably on to Genoa and Sardinia for a week.Switzerland in one hit overnight through Belgium and Germany generally no problem.
I generally drive down to Spain in one hit to get as much night travel as I can.Traffic overnight in Spain and France is remarkably light.There is an occasional police check where they roll their eyes and wave the rhd through.
I will mention that my body clock is totally screwed up.Although i retired 8 years ago I used to work permanent nights for over 15 years.All my friends know that if they need to be at an airport for 3am I’m your man.At 9 or 10 am?Don’t bother asking.
Doing long one hits in a car are ok with plenty of regular stops, to walk around and get some air, grab a coffee and a snooze, as others have said it’s much better to drive at night as it’s cooler for the engine in the summer, less traffic, less traffic police around then in the day.
But you still see them floating around on the peages, and the odd customs check point in random places.
The casualty rates increase in the summer when the Muslim population living and working in Northern Europe all head south to get the ferries from Spain to North Africa, they literally take the kitchen sink, old or new tyres, haberdashery items, old and new bicycles, car engines and car parts on car or van trailers to be sold in North Africa, they also load up to the maximum with old junk on the roof of the car or van and coaches have trailers full old junk to be sold.
That was similar to the Turkish workers in Germany totally losing the plot on the single carriageways of Yugoslavia going home or worse their coach drivers mixing it with local trucks and buses.
I’ve been on long distance coaches that don’t stop, 20 hours or more, when the passengers are asleep the drivers swap seats when the vehicle is in motion, I got to chatting to some Eurolines drivers and they burn out very fast for stress, anxiety and depression for lack of sleep and a diet of caffeine and chain smoking addiction.