Yesterday on the motorway it was raining, sometimes quite heavily. Obviously that means a speed limit of 110kph.
We passed a police car at the side of the road and it looked like the front seat passenger was using a radar device. We were doing an indicated 130 (and were among the slower vehicles ).
I always think about âwhat is rain?â for the limits? A few drops? At the point you need your wipers? What happens with those silly light showers where they stop and start all the time?
reducing speed during times of rain/heavy rain is to enable people to stop before hitting the vehicle in front/whatever⊠if stopping is essential.
if the rain has stopped, but the road surface is still slippery⊠one should still slow down accordinglyâŠ
(thatâs the brief translation of the official blurb)
I remember when the restriction came in, it was 1981 or 82. If I remember correctly it was after a coach full of school children was involved in very nasty autoroute accident in heavy rain. I donât know if the rule has been enforced n practice. For cars equipped with adaptive cruse control itâs somewhat redundant.
There are very few fixed speed cameras on the autoroutes so thatâs exactly how they do carry out speed checks and may radio ahead for the speeding ticket to be issued after passing through the toll plaza. Otherwise a postal version may be issued.
Plenty of videos of such operations on the internet. one from TF1 HERE
Donât forget that (officially) the 110kph limit falls to 100 kph as well.
Iâd assume the standard speed cameras are not smart enough to automatically adjust for the weather, but youâd think that if the police are out and about with a radar gun that theyâd be enforcing whatever speed limit was appropriate for the prevailing conditions.
We were zapped for being just over the lower limit by a speed camera on the A28. It was barely spitting. A big fat raindrop must have plopped onto its sensor. We pass it regularly and I always curse it.
A sensor on my windscreen starts the windscreen wipers automatically as soon as rain is detected. I then turn my lights on, in accordance with the French highway code, and maybe a warning bleep to limit speed could be emitted automatically - on all new.cars, or does such a system already exist?