Many years ago when Francine and I started travelling to France, there were no roundabouts. All road junctions were just that, junctions – cross-roads and the like. There were, of course, a few oddities peculiar to the French, such as the magnificent Arc de Triomphe in the middle of Paris where rules seem indiscernible, but anyone attempting to drive around Paris, let alone the Arc de Triomphe, is certifiable anyway so rules would be superfluous. At least out on the French open roads, the priorité a droite rule at junctions had been replaced by Cédez le Passage giving priority to the major road. Phew! (Image courtesy of http://www.freefoto.com.)

Several years ago, though, someone obviously introduced the French to the concept of the roundabout because they began appearing throughout the country. This was a mixed blessing.

The bad thing about French roundabouts is that most drivers never learnt how to use them correctly. Lorry drivers are actually very good users of roundabouts and conscientiously signal their intentions; they indicate left to stay on a roundabout and right when they are about to exit a roundabout. Car drivers are a completely different bouilloire de poisson. Not only do car drivers never indicate to signal their intentions, they actually try to obfuscate them. Their main obfuscation mechanism consists of using a completely inappropriate lane whilst on a roundabout. Most drivers wishing to go all the way round to the last exit will do so in the outermost lane. When waiting to enter a roundabout, since no car drivers are indicating, one can’t tell whether a car in the outermost lane might be going to exit or continue round. There is a second breed of car driver. The second breed of driver will zoom onto a roundabout straight into the innermost lane, narrowly avoid the island, then swerve straight off again at the first exit cutting up any hapless instance of the first breed of driver merrily toodling all the way around in the outermost lane. The only really safe way to enter a roundabout in France is to wait until no other traffic is in sight. Fortunately, the traffic density is such that this eventually happens.

The good thing about French roundabouts is that they provide the French with a canvas to express their national creativity. French roundabouts are frequently beautifully and interestingly decorated. The decoration is not just flower planting but usually consists of something more like sculpture. The sculpture often indicates a trade associated with a nearby town or the reason for some local historic person’s fame. Other decorative devices just look as though they’ve been pinched from the Tate Modern. [Ed: most things in the Tate Modern would be better used decorating our roundabouts!]

I’d love to make a photographic collection of some of the French roundabouts but we are usually attempting to negotiate them safely by guessing where the other drivers might be going. No easy task when towing a caravan. This last trip, however, we did come across one whilst on bicycles and armed with a camera. (Image courtesy of Francine.)

Great, isn’t it?

Much as we may love France and many of the French we’ve met, it has to be said that they are not the world’s greatest drivers. They believe they are, of course, as is evidenced by the fact that they all think they are Alain Prost. Most French drivers will bust a gasket trying to overtake anyone who happens to be in front.  They don’t necessarily want to go much faster than the leading car but they simply have to be in front. Their overtaking manoeuvres are frequently carried out approaching a blind bend, just as if they were on a racing circuit with no opposing traffic flow. The reason they mostly seem to get away with this lunacy is that the traffic density on France’s roads is very low and there often is no opposing traffic flow. Not always, though.

During our two day journey back from the south of the country to the north we passed a couple of interesting incidents. One was a very fresh one on our final autoroute journey to Calais for the ferry. A camper van was on the hard-shoulder (la bande d’urgence) with its offside rear quarter modified to the point of disintegration. A car was sideways in the outside lane with its nearside front quarter similarly seriously modified. We surmised that the camper van had, perhaps, failed to check its mirrors sufficiently, not seen the car approaching to overtake, and had pulled out and creamed it. It’s only a guess but it made it an understandable, if not forgivable, incident. After a minor delay waiting for a lorry to pick its way through the debris scattered around on the remaining mostly-clear lane, we continued.

The previous day we had seen something entirely incomprehensible, however. We were following some sort of patrol vehicle along a perfectly straight, as built by the Romans, two lane road heading north towards Chartres. Suddenly, the patrol vehicle turned on its Cyclops lamps and the message ”en service” appeared on its rear-mounted message board – very clever. Eventually the van approached a number of stationary cars on the southbound lane and a lady, standing beside the road, began gesticulating wildly into the adjacent low-lying farm field. There, completely inverted, lay a car on its roof. The nearest bends were about two miles in either direction. How does anyone contrive to throw a car off a perfectly straight road such that it flips onto its roof? It may have been a badly-judged Alain Prost overtaking manoeuvre but it certainly wasn’t due to any blind bends or hidden dips in the road. Staggering! Though confused, we decided against stopping to ask the driver, still trapped upside down in the car, how he (I assume it was a he) had contrived to perform such a feat.

We’ve picked our way through the couple of bits of carnage and are safely back at home on the overcrowded roads of the UK.