Your traffic story made me smile! Well, for her to curse in English she must be fluent since we have such a colorful and varied selection of "choice" words!
While I am not "fluent" since I do not dream in French and there are many topics for which I lack the vocabulary, I do get by well. When I moved to Lyon in 2010 I did not know a French. I enrolled at the U of Lyon and within 3 months I was able to conduct myself but with the amusing mixture of Catalan and Spanish thrown in! In Lyon, people were appreciative that I "spoke" French but would tell me to choose a language since Catalan would slip in. Paris was stereotypical...no patience with me whatsoever.
Karen, if this is your first foreign language, do not stress too much. You will get there. Sign up for the app DuoLingo...easy lessons and free. Plus you can arrange to study with friends elsewhere...have friendly competitions to complete lessons, etc. I had the advantage of knowing other Romance languages. My accent and whether I am understood varies on the region. In the SW, I have no issues but in Nice it was puzzling.
Good luck and thanks for starting this thread. I discovered a few new links and insightful info.