As a motorist, the thing you have to remember about French road signs is that they are there to confuse rather than inform. This may not seem a logical approach, but then who ever accused the French of being logical - except themselves? But why would they do it? Ill thought-out malice or just sheer incompetence? I think it is a bit of both, and whether deliberate of not, the effect is to give foreign road users or anyone who is not local a hard time.
I have driven the equivalent of to the moon and back a couple of times on foreign roads and am thus no Little Englander who thinks that nobody knows how to stick a road sign up like us Brits. I am also allowing for the fact that all motorists complain about road signage in their own as well as other countries. Like accusing your wife of holding the road map upside down, blaming misleading or non-existent road signage is a convenient way of shifting the blame..
But, in France, it does seem that the authorities responsible for telling people where and where not to go on the roads must have a special sub-committee charged with ensuring that all signs either mislead or completely confuse those they are meant to help.
A classic example is what I call the Primrose Path Syndrome. This is where you are assured every fifty metres that you are on the right road to your destination, then the information is suddenly withdrawn when you get to a roundabout or crossroads or the rural French equivalent of Spaghetti Junction. Why do they do that?
Probably even more annoying is when there is a sign, but it can’t make up its mind which way to point. It must take ages to fiddle with all those millions of directional placards until they are in exactly the right position to seem be directing you to go straight on or at a complete tangent. Why do they do that?
Another extremely irritating thing is the way that more means so much less understanding in road sign terms here. If there is the slightest excuse to put up a superfluous sign, the French will take it, especially if they work for the Department of the Bleedin’ Obvious Where else would you have a sign showing a left-angled arrow with a line through it which is- wait for it- warning drivers entering a motorway that it would not be a good idea to do a three point turn and then drive in the opposite direction against all the oncoming traffic on your side of the crash barriers? By the way, the authorities also think it necessary to put a mirror image sign up to tell those already on the motorway that it does not recommend them doing a sudden U-turn and driving up the slip road against any oncoming traffic. Where else would you have a picture of a car with a line through it as you are about to enter a motorway slip road? This is not ( as you could be forgiven for thinking) to tell you that cars are banned from using the motorway, but that, surprise, surprise, you are not allowed to park your car on the slip road.
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As if it weren’t bad enough having to contend with confusing and misleading road signs, the equivalent of the Highways and Byeways Department in Brittany also has a nasty habit of moving small towns while one’s back is turned. Or at least that is what they seem to be doing. There is a town in our neck of the woods called Plouz’ch, which is enough of a mouthful in itself if you want to ask someone how to get there. It is one of those place names which you think the locals must have made up just to brass off visitors or people from outside the area. It is also a place which seems to like getting around a bit. There are five roads into the burgh, and each of those roads has countless tracks and lanes leading to and from them. Some of the roads are signposted and some not, and some appear to be leading you to the church steeple, but actually take you out of town and dump you in a farmyard just as the chickens are coming home to roost. And that is not an uncommon phenomenon in our bit of Brittany. So it seems to me there are only two choices. Either Brittany is full of villages that mysteriously move while your back is turned, or the French really are that bad at signposting.
February 9th:
I found it wryly amusing to tune in to home news from abroad on the BBC and be told that the UK is the laughing stock of Europe because the nation has come to a full stop as a result of a bit of snow. Increasingly from this perspective and distance, I have observed how good we Brits are at beating ourselves up; this will be the sixth time this month that we have allegedly been the prime source of derisory amusement for our fellow Europeans
If our self-flagellating social commentators think we are bad at responding to adverse weather conditions, they have clearly not been out and about in northern rural France when it snows or rains a bit. Or at least in our part of Brittany, where it snows and rains about as frequently and heavily as it does in the south of England.
What is most noticeable when the weather changes for the worse here is how the local drivers go from being absolute lunatics to real scaredy-cats, and none more so than the usually oh-so macho (and madly bad) lorry drivers.
Just like southern Britain, northern Brittany got a heavy dose of snow overnight at the beginning of last week. Snug and warm in our mountain fastness, we had not run out of any vital provisions and had no real excuse to battle our way into the nearest town. But it was our big chance to try out the new second-hand 4x4 we bought a couple of months ago mainly to explore all those interestingly mysterious dirt tracks in our neighbourhood, and to get through the swamp that used to be our driveway.
Accordingly, we took to the road across the moors and found ourselves coming up behind what we at first thought was a funeral procession. Then we realised it was a queue of normally completely bonkers Breton motorists, driving as if on eggshells rather than a bit of slush and snow. The weather conditions had obviously brought out the innate love of high drama lurking just below the skin of all French men and most French women. All the cars in front had their head, fog and hazard lights on, and it would literally have been quicker to walk than stay in the queue. Overtaking to a symphony of hooting, hi-volume shrugging and general gesticulating and interesting comments, we arrived at the main road and found the situation even worse.
We were on the chief thoroughfare from all parts of Brittany to the ferry port at Roscoff, and it was almost at a standstill. Finding the road conditions not to their liking, the drivers of at least a hundred giant euro-lorries had just bottled out and unilaterally decided to stop where they were. I suppose it is second nature to the average French lorry driver to park in the most awkward situation and position possible or to deliberately form a blockade, and I think some of those in the little huddles alongside their vehicles must have thought they were on strike rather than a slightly snowy road.
As we threaded our way though the stranded juggernauts to more choruses of hooting disapproval, we actually saw a man in a hi-visibility jacket, waving a red flag at the line of cars crawling towards his lorry. Then three carloads of gendarmes arrived with suitable blue light- flashing and siren-sounding accompaniment, and the scene was set for some real drama. As the cops adjusted their gun belts lit up their fags with cool and practiced menace and started their arm-waving and whistling routine to ensure a complete snarl-up, we slipped trough a handy gate, across a field and onto a lane which we knew would take us home without let and hindrance.
As I have said before, the French may be great at lots of things, but driving and making sensible use of the road in any conditions definitely ain’t one of them. Though when you think about it, what can you expect from a nation of drivers who call a sparking plug a candle, and the rear window a toilet seat?