Driving Impressions

Monday 6 May

A few 'notes to self' about driving experiences in France after 2 days:

1. Lesson learnt - concentrate, don't get too comfortable and revert to left hand driving habits. The worst situations seem to be when turing out of a driveway when it is very hard to shake the habit of looking 'the wrong way' and not seeing oncoming traffic.

2. Watch out for the shoulders on country roads.They often seem to drop off sharply leaving no room for error if moving over to make room for oncoming traffic - unlike in NZ where they are on the whole more forgiving.

3. There are not too many places to easily stop and look at the view. Maybe the locals don't think that it is really a view worth looking at!?

4. Traffic lights seem harder to spot than in NZ, so you need to be vigilant and look out for them. They are only installed on the 'near' side of the intersection so that the first car in the queue often can't see them when stopped. Most countries solve this by putting a set of lights across the other side of the intersection. But not here, instead there is a miniature traffic light on the post at eye level for the first car to watch!

5. Be careful with the GPS! (We were warned about this one but had to learn the hard way!) If asked to find the shortest route it can get carried away and sent you down dodgy roads. An example from real life:

Step 1: Hmm. this is very narrow, I hope we don't meet someone coming the other way...
Step 2: This can't really be a road, but it does have a name apparently, so lets carry on, maybe round the next corner it will get better...
Step3: You can't be serious! That bridge is only a metre wide, I couldn't drive across it even if I wanted to! And I don't trust the alternative route which is 2 wheel ruts leading up a grassy hill either.
Step 4: Execute a many point turn and retrace your path back to tar seal.

6. The rental car has some cool features. One is an 'eco' setting that turns the engine off automatically. For example if you put the car in neutral and let the clutch out (as I sometimes do when waiting at traffic lights) then the engine switches off by itself. A bit disconcerting until you reailise it is happening on purpose! It turns itself back on when the clutch is depressed.
Speaking hypothetically, this could come in handy for someone who stalled after forgetting he was driving a manual - the car would start itself automatically.

P

P.S. And today's drive in the country was magnificent. Beautiful blue skies and great scenery. We followed part of the 'cider route' - this is apple country and everywhere there is cider, calvados (apple brandy) and various other apple products being sold from local farms and little village shops.