George East's Blog

Signs of the Times

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are assured  every fifty metres that you are on the right road  to your destination, then the information is suddenly withdrawn when you get to a roundabout or  crossroads or the rural French equivalent of  Spaghetti Junction.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.