Driving in France, what's the story these days?

You can buy the breatherlisers and high viz in the local supermarkets (cheaper than halfords), my French friends have been buying high viz jackets but haven’t bothered with the breatherlizers so I suppose that says something about requirements. I’ve seen a few broken down cars over there recently and the drivers have been wearing their high viz jackets.

For the motorway tolls I’ve always just used cash/credit card and I tend to drive in France 4 or 5 times a year, too lazy to get the automatic thing !

I save about 15l when I use the nationals to the Alps as well as over 100e in tolls. That’s in the van, in the car the fuel use is siimlar but as the tolls are only 68e I pay.

On some routes it works, but to Monaco the route is shocking when Avoiding tolls.

Takes about 9 hours longer and the fuel used is probably 20 litres more.

It does work out cheaper, but pollutes more and takes 9 hours longer which turns it into a 2 day drive rather than 1, so you need to factor in an overnight stop, which ruins the cost saving.

True, in the car we aim at arriving at the ski resort a few of hours before the lifts open. Madame gets home from work, we get on the autoroute, stick to the limits for 900km and arrive in Tignes where there’s a warm underground car park to sleep in.

The van is slower so we sleep in the back when we’ve had enough. Brick-wall aerodynamics mean fuel consumption goes exponential goes exponential over 90kmh.

I save about 15l when I use the nationals to the Alps as well as over 100e in tolls.

Did it take longer?

As for sticky tape – many modern cars have an adjuster to switch from RHD headlights to LHD without needing tape. I didn’t know this until after I got back from Germany and spent 6 months being able to see bugger all at night.

Yup, it takes longer. Van travel is a different style of traveling. In the car we hop in, drive, change drivers every hour or so and keep going until we arrive. In the van we trundle along at a bearable noise level (90kmh is bearable), make tea, walk around to ease aches caused by the awful seats, sleep, drive and get there eventually regardless of road type.

Carrying a warning triangle, hiviz etc is a pretty good idea in the uk as well as france.

You double your journey time on the nationals, It sucks. I prefer to pay the tolls and get there quicker, even in a van. Also, on the autoroutes you are less likely to be robbed if you stop to sleep at a service station than if you just pull over on the side of the road.

One thing to keep in mind about travelling in france during the summer, never travel on a Saturday. It’s the day that gite rentals start and end and the holiday destination roads (a9, a7 etc) are always gridlocked. Red or black warning signs at the payage entrance means slow or stationary traffic on the autoroutes.