You just reminded of the days when it was impossible to buy petrol on a Sunday and all shops were closed for 2 hours in the middle of the day!
Even when 24 hour pumps started to appear you had no chance with a UK bank card
We were saved by a nice Frenchman who filled our tank with his card in exchange for cash.
Just goes to prove you canât trust the EnglishâŚ
In the early days of pre-paid currency cards, there were quite a few disgruntled English complaining (on Anglo-Info) that the fuel pumps âstoleâ their money⌠when in truth, what they had difficulty understanding was that a set amount was reserved against the card when used out of hours and that the reserved amount, less the actual expenditure, would be restored to their card when the merchant claimed the expense (may be as much as a few days later). They couldnât grasp that in France there is no such thing as fuel up then pay like in the UK with itâs high percentage of drivers doing a runnerâŚ
In some cases it was inconvenient because all they had on their card would be gobbled up by the pump without their understanding until they tried to use the card next time only to find it refused for apparent lack of fundsâŚ
Or anyone, it seems.
A few years back, I chanced to venture outside our peaceful provincial backwater and stopped for petrol on a busy main road.
The filling station must have had more than a few ârunnersâ because they insisted on payment at the desk before they would start the pump. So they demanded to know what I wanted to pay and took that amount from my card. Could have been a problem if I had miscalculated the available capacity. . . . .
actually⌠I had a Barclaycard (visa) and used it all across France, whenever we visited.
However, I did have one funny incident when we really needed cash⌠OH stopped and I leapt into the bank⌠thrust my card into the machine and started tapping⌠nothing⌠tapping⌠nothingâŚ
then a very nice man came and explained that the machine was for account holders only (imagine my very red faceâŚ)
He directed me to the nearest hole in the wall⌠
Just harking back to the roundabouts for a moment. In France all PL (HGV) drivers are taught to use the right hand lane (if there are any) all the way round indicating left to inform those behind and those in front entering, that they are staying on the roundabout, and then indicate right as soon as the last, unwanted, exit is passed.
And a very good system too imo, and one I have employed for many years even before driving here. It means you have only one side of the vehicle to concentrate on for overtakers but you do have to have full attention to spot the ones who are about to chop you up into their, earlier, exit.
I have never had an accident on a roundabout (or anywhere else blameworthy come to that) and have always been able to avoid the chop-up numpties because I was always able to give them my full attention.
IMO all overtaking on roundabouts should be banned and none should have lane markings. It isnât hard to do, at the end of many dual carriageways a hatched area brings all traffic into one lane onto the roundabout. Everybody gets away quicker and safer.
I would say 80% of roundabouts in France now do not have lane markings. Driving an artic in the UK and Europe, the most likely place to have a minor scrape would be roundabouts with folk trying to pass.
1 Like
I once saw an interesting accident at a light controlled crossroads in the UK.
A lorry driver needing to make a left turn into a narrow road had taken up a position in the right hand lane.
A car driver, ignoring his left turn signal, nipped in on his left. When the lights changed, they both started at the same time and although the car driver realised what was happening and applied his brakes, the rear wheels of the artic went right over his bonnet!
âIf you canât see my mirrors, I canât see you.â is something to take seriously.
Yes, and significant that it was a left turn, if a RHD lorry, precisely why I keep right in France with my blind side covered by the kerb. I had a similar experience many years ago at the bottom of Archway, in the days when we could drive through London. After leaving the gyratory, heading south, the road narrows. I felt nothing and a young woman, braving the oncoming traffic, forced her car past me and blocked the road. She thought I was trying to escape. We found a man, face white as a sheet, sitting in his car with great big dented black circular marks along his door and front wing left there by my trailerâs tyres. He had been trying to undertake me, and came within a whisker of a real undertaker. I left my details, and heard no more of the matter.
@Van. The trouble I have in my rare visits to the UK these days is the habit of the road engineers insisting with approaching lane markings that you take what, to me, is a less than safe course of action.
During an office refurbishment, I was found a temporary desk next to the companyâs transport manager.
One day, after getting a telephone call, he couldnât stop laughing. My curiosity got the better of me and I ask âWant to share it with me?â
He said he had just been speaking to another transport manager who had called one of his drivers into his office for a word, after he had finished his deliveries.
âDid you notice anything special when you made your last drop?â
âWell it was a bit awkward, narrow entrance, had to reverse up a bit to get out.â
âAnything else?â
âI did notice a slight bump, but thereâs not a mark on the trailer.â
âWell theyâve informed me that youâve just demolished their fucking warehouse!â
1 Like
Never did that 
, but I once parked a wagon on a slight slope to unload and while on the trailer felt it shudder and start to creep slowly across the road. Couldnât climb back in because the step was on the wheel so walked alongside convinced that it would stop at the opposite kerb. It didnât, but I felt sure that the very low brick wall before a steep drop would do the trick. I was exultant when I was proved right, then watched in horror as no less than a 30 feet long section trembled, and fell over. 
3 Likes
The cannot see my mirrors I cannot see you stickers on the back of lorries will soon be disappearing. This years Mercedes trucks have the option of internal cab mirrors, which are in fact screens fed by small reverse facing cameras. The cameras are programmed to view the rear of the trailer therefore potentially erasing blind spots.
Yes lane markings leading up to an unmarked roundabout are somewhat of an oxymoron.
There was a record some years back that summed up the Arc de Triomphe (Ătoile) perfectly. I do believe it was called Scream Until You Like It
1 Like
Iâve already posted on this subject on another thread, but itâs pertinent to this one too
Perhaps the following isnât a problem elsewhere, but living on the border between the Aveyron (80kph max) and the Cantal (90kph max, except on routes nationales, where itâs still 80kph) oneâs continually struggling with legal speed limits. If you drive up the Lot Valley the road continually goes in and out of the Aveyron and the Cantal for many kilometres and eaxch time the legal speed limit changes.
However, outside the tourist camper van season, most locals still do 100kph plus regardless of which departement theyâre in
Iâm surprised that much of this is a suprise.
Some of this has been in place since the '60/70s (when I first travelled to France by car) and before. Priote a Droite is still and has always been the default.
Speed limits, reduced speed limits due to rain, automatic speed limits within village/town/city boundaries have been in place for years.
I supose the basci lesson is that if you are living, driving, working or even walking in another country you need to familarise yourself with the rules and regs. You canât assume that the rules/regs that apply in the UK are universally accepted as correct or universally applied in third country legislation.
The rules in the Code de la Route for roundabouts are nothing like they are in the UK. They are perhaps illogical for people from the UK but they are the rules.
Why should you be able to speed in France and escape a speeding penalty because you live in the UK. Breaking the speed limit is the same offence regardless of where you do it.
Yes some peages just take a fixed fee based on the next section of peage, others issue tickets that you have âstampedâ and have to pay for when you leave the peage. The little boxes in the windscreen that enable you to travel through the peages withouts having to stump up cash have been available for years (including for UK travellers).
All true, and I am surprised at the surprise too. 
Etoile - the most fun you can have since they ruined Hyde Park Corner with traffic lights!
2 Likes
what about the âMagic Roundaboutâ in Swindon?