For me dropping the speed limit is not really the issue,but the continued practice of priority to the right, poor traffic island education and aliowing 14 year olds to have mopeds, where bad road practices are learnt from an early age.
Have to agree about la priorité à droite, it’s not the rule per-se, even though it is a bit nuts (works well when two farmers are approaching a junction in their carts at 2mph, not so much these days) but the inconsistent way that it is applied.
One of the villages that I regularly drive through has the junctions marked which is fair enough, but in our village there are at least two junctions where it should apply but I find that less than 1/3 of drivers approaching from my left actually yield so I tend to be pretty careful when emerging from those junctions.
The road at Le Bugue is already a reduced speed area of 70. France Bleu Périgord carried a more detailed description.
There have been a significant number of accidents in the Dordogne in the last few years due to drivers having a ‘malaise’, or skidding on diesel or oil spills - nothing to do with speeding.
During the tourist season here I am regularly in traffic doing 80kph or less. This low speed scares me because the effect is that cars bunch up on each other trailing the slow vehicle as no one is able to overtake due to oncming traffic. If anyone brakes (and particularly as newer cars are quite high) it is difficult to see them stop and I have seen a good few near misses. Equally other non tourist traffic becomes frustrated resulting in overtaking in dangerous situations.
I have three children on 80kph plates - It makes a long haul of driving to our nearest town on wide, clear roads !
If someone suggested painting the roads with reflective paint or putting a few cats eyes in, or reducing the speed limit on minor roads that might do a huge amount more for road safety. In the Dordogne the official response to improving dangerous bends in icy conditions is that traffic should slow down.
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i personally cannot wait for reduced speeds, already the road outside our house in planned to be a 70 zone which is awesome but know it wont stop idiots driving like lunatics. indicating to turn into a junction saw a car coming flying up the road yesterday (its a solid white line too) and flre past me as im about to turn honking her horn (yes it was a female) and her phone to her ear, clearly me turning with my indicator on had no effect on her. bigger fines and more points taken is what they need. if you dont speed why worry about it. I do feel for all those who travel long journey’s and how long it will add to their journey. loosing 10 km an hour in the 90’s only will likely add on minus th 70 and 50 zones people pass maybe 6 mins per hour so a 5 hour journey will take approx 30 mins more time which is quite a bit but how many of us drive for 5 hours straight on secondary road’s
this morning after dropping kids off to school i stopped to let some mums and kids cross the road, as they are crossing i saw a horrified look on the mums face to hear heavy breaking from a car in a 30 zone, clearly not doing 30. i got out and the tyre marks were so long i think at least 6 or 7 long cars length. irroncially the person in the car behind was putting her hands in the air because of the hold up and me getting out of my car. Yes she only just managed to miss my car too. There are just too many lunatic drivers out there that reduced speed zones will not slow down in fact it might even make them even more crazy.
Must admit both the above incidents illustrate why a blanket reduction to 80km/h is not necessarily the answer - one already in a 30km/h zone - which won’t change with the new legislation and one that will probably drive like that whatever the speed limit.
Average speed cameras however are effective in reducing speeds and accidents.
Motorway conditions are far safer than N roads with all the hazards one find on them.
Harry, you have already stated it won’t make any difference.
You are just driving locally from your posts. In my case it adds and extra hour and I am already becoming mind numbed after 6.5 hours.
Make the motorways toll free! that will help if it’s really about speed. The extra fines they will collect on speeding on minor roads will pay for the loss of revenue from the motorways.
Tazer drivers who drive too close, pain is a bloody good teacher!
What to do about the tossers who drive at 50KPH in a 70+ except when they get to a dual carriage way and then immediately increase their speed to hamper overtaking.
as i said I feel for those on long journey’s
Yes for the minority idiots who drive under and well over the speed limit but as most people are sensible road users then they will obey and follow traffic laws which will in turn reduce accidents. Tail gating driving with high beams and fog lights behind and towards other motorists also a big pain in the ass and police are cracking down on fog light users.
Unfortunately I quite like travelling at 80 and while im in a 50 i do 50 and 30 i do 30 in 90’s I do stick to 80 85 kms speed. I also prefer to pay the tolls and use the motorway where even in 130 zones i do 110.
OK, lets look at it another way, Are the high accident and mortality rates on French roads caused by people traveling a 90KPH on 90 KPH roads? If they are it’s through traveling nose to tail giving no thinking/action to avoid time. However if they travel at 80KPH on 80KPH roads nose to tail does anything actually change?
10KPH difference is 2.7 meters second and the french regularly drive 2 meters from the back of the car in front, sometimes worse.
10km can be the difference between life and death. and 2 cars hitting each other nose to nose is 20 km less although mortality rate at heat on at 160 km is pretty much a given. point being is that we will not be able to judge until; its been seen, they have looked at it with experts which none of us are so i am thinking they might know what they are doing or trying to do.
It might not even happen yet
This might put the cat among the pigeons… seems Men are worse drivers than Women ???..
To know that one would need data on fatalities per road type, adjusted for road use and perhaps average speeds per road type as well.
I wasn’t able to find that data on a quick hunt on t’internet but did find a document from 2012 analysing French road safety (a long read, only had time to skim). It does suggest (page 19) that fatalities on rural roads (so, mostly 90km/h presumably) account for only 28.1% of deaths but 52.9% of those hospitalised following an accident. I’m guessing that difference is because there is less chance of vehicle vs pedestrian on rural roads, compared with vehicle vs vehicle. EU wide, rural roads account for 55% of deaths.
So it may well be that the high accident rate is drivers going too fast on national speed limit roads but the mortality figures are possibly something else.
Euro ncap 5 stars is only one vehicle crashing into a stationary block at 50KPH at the combined speed of 160 the outcome is fatal more often than not. but lets be honest when this happens it’s an overtake of a vehicle doing 90 or soon to be 80 by another doing 110-130kph nothing changed.
However more minor shunts in france are rear ends due to tailgating and the reduction by 10KPH if everyone is still in a line tailgating doesn’t allow enough time to avoid. That is the overriding point I tried to get over.
and none of us are expert enough to determine what the 10 km less will do. all we can do is speculate. even if it saves 1 life it is worth it.
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Hi Paul, good work, shame there isn’t more up to date, I believe the 2015 haven’t been released.
As to whether you can ascertain there is enough detail to examine the type of accidents “The experts” have made a decision on.
The D750 down our way is a 90KPH once you are away from the houses, there is a medium bend at one point, the scene of several accidents so wisely they put a camera there. I witnessed the death of one young girl who had overtaken me a minute earlier and barely slowed for the bend. Died of a broken neck, which was obvious. I think it was her death that got the camera put there. In this era of increased road safety they have this year removed it, dammed if i can figure out why, possibly the most obvious place to put one. Now we have them on arrow straight sections of the N154 and N10. Those roads are easy to drive at 90 and 110 kph. Not sure that it’s vehicle meets pedestrian on those but I have been overtaken many many times by 120-130kph vehicles who know only too well where the cameras are. I wouldn’t mind average speed cameras at 90KPH on those roads. The real cause of accidents that I have seen are not paying attention to traffic changes, tailgating and mobile phone using. Giving those people 2.7meters might help in traffic light changes but it’s only 1 second more.
If you put it into perspective that’s 55 down to 50mph (doesn’t sound so fast now) and we have 60 and 70mph in the UK but our accident rate is less, although with highly clogged roads it’s a wonder.
Do you read the daily mail? you sound like a headline.
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no i dont but my niece was killed by a speeding driver so i’m all for reducing speed limits and smacking the people breaking them with hefty fines and stripping them of their licences.
no matter what speed limit you set some prat will always speed.
Point being is if everyone else slows down it reduces the risks even if my a small percentage its still a reduction.
It’s not the speed limits that need reviewing it’s the drink drive laws. All too often are hunters boozed up on a shooting day and speeding through the countryside.
Yes I like a drink as well, but not at breakfast or lunch time as many seem to do here…
thik some countries like sweden where your limit has to be zero to drive have got it right.