Driving along the road from Ouistreham to Caen, around the peripherique and onto the A84 this morning at 7am, in the pitch blackness of pre-dawn northern France with a wet road, driving rain and the headlights of oncoming cars destroying the last vestige of visibility I cursed the fact (as I have done on many similar occasion) that the worn out road and lane markings had become completely invisible and the French - at least in this part of the country do not seem to have heard of cat’s eyes.
Why the heck not, it seems such an obvious safety measure.
We have flashing versions on some roundabots. I usually find the french white lines reflect much better than the English ones, of course that means they must be maintained as with anything.
I should have thought to download some footage from the dashcam - unfortunately it didn’t decide to save anything from that part of the journey.
There are sections where the lane markings are beautifully clear, but there are also sections, where they are almost completely worn out and essentially invisible in wet, dark conditions.
There are also reflective bits on various posts but with spray and rain on the windscreen the headlights of oncoming cars splinter into thousands of points of light which makes any small reflective pip a few feet off the ground very hard to spot.
Ah
I see stupidity is not the reserve of the British, then?
In complete agreement. A stretch of the A20 in London/Kent border suffers the same invisible carriage way line markers and on a wet dark night is dangerous as there is a feed in lane from the left.
A lot of our recently repaired roads further south are currently without any markings but I’ve not found it a problem. OTOH we probably get less rain.
However, do love the red and white stripey posts that indicate a turnoff- so useful. When I lived in SA (no cat’s eyes or stripey posts) if returning from the Cape or the north at night, I’d often miss the turn-off to my outer suburb and continue driving for many kilometres.
The installation of cats’ eyes is actually #3 of my actions that’ll be introduced once I’m President of the republic. As you may recall, #1 is to abolish la priorité à droit, and #2 is to ban all voitures sans permis.
I applaud the first 2 but not in that order. No.1 must be cats eyes, No 2. Priorite a droite and only 3 for err, no, no No.3. Sans Permis are essential in country areas with no public transport and they go so slowly that they are not hard for others to overtake and, in any case, by the same reasoning you would have to ban all cyclists, which I would also oppose.
There is a No.3, and I don’t want to start a war, but ban compulsory seatbelts for drivers.
La priorité à droit was introduced to our village about three months ago, with all new signage when certain narrow roads in the village were made one way.
Why ? Actually I know why, it’s because other villages around here are doing it. Why are other villages doing it ?
Edit: What annoys me more is that after having temporary traffic calming chicanes for a year due to road closures elsewhere diverting more traffic through the village, many people suggested putting in permanent chicanes on the D road that goes through part of the village. That road, which I live on, has traffic going through it regularly at high speed, 70-80kmh seems to be the norm. They spent the money on rejigging the roads in the village centre and implementing PàD instead . Phew, rant over. I feel better now.
Because it is a stupid idea (no, really, it’s the stupidity which is desireable).
It’s like those experiments (my increasingly fallible memory says that they were in the Netherlands but I can’t find a reference) where they altered junctions/roundabouts so that drivers had less confidence going into them - the result being that people drive more slowly.
If you know someone can pop out of a side road unexpectedly and you have to give way then the natural inclination is to slow down.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened here. Most drivers still seem to go through the village at 70-80kph regardless. Now, if they had used the money for traffic calming chicanes and humps instead, that would have slowed drivers down.
Edit: The thing about slowing drivers down at junctions and roundabouts is used all the time in the UK and has for a long time. That’s why you get large bushes in rows planted strategically around roundabouts, those annoying ones that block your view of the traffic coming from your right as you approach.
Nod, I’d have thought a narrowed section at the entry/exit points would help and surely not a huge expense. We did that - not sure if they repeated the speed survey but some people were driving through the village over 100kph
A few years back when 30mph was the limit there was a coordinated campaign between villagers and police checking speeding through local villages. About a third of the people caught actually lived in the villages that took part.
I think that’s quite common - I think if you are very familiar with the roads it’s easy for your speed to creep up. But also a percentage of people will speed regardless of where they are.
Partageons la route.
Or, before abolish sans permis, please put in place an alternative for those that rely on them to get to the shops, the hospital, visit friends and family and friends. Then visit each of them individually and explain to them what the alternative is, or if there is not one for them, explain to them that they will be housebound from now on because they get in your way when you are use your roads.
Priorité à droite works well in certain places, eg going through small towns, and it saves the municipality having to provide road signs and road markings at every junction. The idea as I take it is to break down the ‘tin box’ mentality and get drivers to change their behaviour to suit the environment - drive slowly in areas not designed for through traffic, be aware of their surroundings and be alert to other moving traffic be it motorized or on two wheels or on foot, It asks more of the driver in terms of paying attention and showing patience and respect for other road users but hopefully we are all capable of it.
Except, in our village, we had just three give way signs before. Now we have four new PaD signs. Also, the give way signs have been removed. That’s a lot of extra cost to change to PaD.
Except it doesn’t, certainly not in our village where these changes were made three months ago. Most people still come through way too fast.
I imagine it takes a a lot longer than 3 months (and possibly several near misses or even a collision to wake people up) to change driver behavior. In the town I am specifically thinking of it has always been priorité à droite and it works. There are two roads with shops along them that cross each other in the town centre, the two roads are of about equal size and importance so there is no reason why one would have priority over the other, and along each of these main axes for a stretch of half a mile or so there is a succession of side roads to left and right. There are no signs or road markings at any of these junctions and it is precisely the absence of road markings that indicates to drivers that they must look for themselves to see whether they can go or not. I do not even know what a PAD sign looks like, unless it is simply the yellow lozenge with a line through it? but signs should not be necessary, that surely is the whole point. If there are no signs or markings to the contrary then priorité à droite applies.
. Phew, rant over. I feel better now.
. Same here, some do go considerably faster. 70-80 is the norm. Only the bin lorry seems to stick to the speed limit