Just wondering if anyone could update me with status of this barmpot piece of Gallic legislation .
I’m aware that it still exists , inasmuch as it’s never officially been repealed , and I’m also aware that the occasionally encountered yellow diamond signs signify the presence of a PàD zone , although I can’t recall ever seeing that many of them .
I also have various items of soiled laundry to testify to my experience that the priorité à droite mindset also seems to be prominent in certain various backwater French villages that don’t appear to have the luxury of signage advertising that fact , as I’ve almost come a cropper on the odd occasion over the years .
But as I have had very little experience in recent years , my question would be : in 2023 , how widespread is it these days to witness a 2cv exit a virtual dirt track onto an obviously more prominent thoroughfare with a total disregard for oncoming vehicles ?
Is it as common these days as it was in the 60s , or have the French motoring public seen the light and finally kicked this intrinsically dangerous practice into touch ? … I very much doubt that somehow .
In fairness , I have to say that over the years , in the main , I’ve found the Gallic approach to the control and regulation of traffic to be both sensible and logical . More so than in the U.K. quite often in fact .
To give just one small example out of many , the flashing amber traffic lights at crossroads in the centre of some small towns in the middle of the night when everyone’s in bed and there’s hardly any traffic about … Why couldn’t we adopt that idea here ? … instead of sitting at a red light for ten minutes at 2 a.m with no-one else around for miles ?
I could cite quite a few more actually , but the priorité à droite rule wouldn’t be anywhere among them I’m afraid .
The first time I encountered Priorite a droite was in the very early '70s driving through France to Spain. This rule belongs to horse and carts & is disastrously dangerous today.
Ironically, we seem to have newly adopted the practice here in Blightly on roundabouts. If I arrive at a roundabout and the road is clear, I can enter; but matey piling too fast into the roundabout from the right of me seems to think that if he’s driving faster, he has right of way even though he arrived later than I did. This never used to happen. We’re doomed! Aye, doomed!
In my experience in the real world everyone was well aware of the massive speeds of traffic on RN’s etc before the autoroute network was as widespread.
The speed regime generally made the survival instinct overrule any archaic priority to emerging traffic from right.
At slower speeds in built up areas it didn’t make much difference.
Ironically I prefer the rule give way to entering traffic on a roundabout.But priorities really defeat the object of roundabouts a rule of merge in turn would be better.
While in general I prefer continental road layouts and ideas like the flashing amber at night and flashing green before amber.
Thanks Franglais , I’ll give it a go another time . Meanwhile , how do you post a comment without actually replying to someone else’s comments ? In common with a number of others , I’m finding it all a bit confusing .
That’s working.
This still the “Priorite a droite” thread.
To start a new thread, click the grey “New Topic” top right.
To look at all the topics in the Old Timers section?
From the home page…(click on the TN symbol top left to go there from anywhere)
Click on the Old Timer bit and the latest replies on the various threads will be there.
On home page latest replies on all the forums is on the right
I’ll probably figure it all out given a bit of time Franglais , but for now my head’s hurting , and I’ve been unable to find the grey vertical arrow that you mentioned , but then , I come from Wiggin , and we’re famous for being a bit thick around these parts .
Also , I’m using an iPad ,…don’t know if that has any relevance .
Now just one more thing… Is there a simple means of locating a historic thread , or is just a case of endlessly scrolling down the page and hoping that you spot it before you scroll past it ?
I do realise that the timeline in the right hand column gives a rough indication .
On my screen, I`m not on an i-pad but I think it’s the same anyway, there is a magnifying glass (right next to your green E) Tap on there and type in a key word or two.
I mean the green E top right of the screen
Yeah ! …brilliant mate …thanks for sorting that lot out for me . Next hurdle … posting a photo , but now that those basic steps have been explained to me , with a little perseverance , I may eventually get used to this new setup as it doesn’t seem quite as bad as it did initially .
Well Franglais , I’ve managed to upload a couple of photos , but rather than start a new thread for just a couple of shots , I posted them on a thread entitled Trucks from Odessa in Ukrainia in the expectancy that they’d appear on this first page , but they haven’t , obviously . So I still have some learning to do it would appear .
If you care to view the shots , you’ll find them on the aforementioned thread . Meanwhile it’s back to the reception class for me .
Hang on ! I’ll see if can put the blo ody things on here … See ? I have picked up a few things .
