Driving in France from the UK

to drive in france you need to be 18 years old but if you're under 21 you're gonna struggle to hire a car take your driving license with you if it's a photo card license then you won't need an international driving permit but if it's the older paper style license you may need one of those permits take proof of insurance if you have uk car insurance you likely have some kind of european cover but check with your insurer to make sure you don't need a green card anymore though a green card is an internationally recognized proof of insurance you can get from your insurer simply contact them and they should send one out usually for an admin fee take proof of your mot and also take your v5 logbook your registration certificate so you can show that you're the registered keeper of the car you need to take a warning triangle this is something you put behind the car if you break down you can keep it in the boot what you can't keep in the boot though are the high visibility vests you need one for each person in the car and they need to be kept inside the car so that if you break down you can access them before you get out of the car you also need headlamp deflectors these are stickers you put on your headlights to stop you blinding oncoming traffic in the uk we drive on the left and our headlights shine more brightly towards the left and then when we drive that same car on the right we're now blinding oncoming cars which is why you need those stickers if your car has a flat beam though like this one you don't need those stickers you also need to put a uk sticker on the back of your car you don't need the uk sticker though if your number plate already has uk on it with a union jack if it has gb on it i'm afraid that's no longer acceptable and if you already have a gb sticker that's also no longer acceptable that hasn't been acceptable since september 2021 but if the number plate does have gb on it don't worry you don't have to change your number plates you can just put a uk sticker on the back of your car signs in france are similar to the signs in the uk if you have a triangle with a red border that means it's a warning if you have a triangle with a yellow border that's a temporary warning a circle with a red border is something you should not do and a blue circle is something you should do signs are also color-coded so blue signs are for motorways or what they call auto routes green signs are for main roads and white signs are normally for villages and local roads and if you see a sign with biz bis on it that's a scenic route in france speed limits differ depending on whether it's wet or dry in urban areas it's always 50 kilometers per hour whether it's wet or dry just drive sensibly out of town it's 80 kilometers per hour in the dry and 70 kilometers per hour in the wet on dual carriageways is 110 kilometers per hour in the dry and 100 kilometers per hour in the wet and on motorways they're also routes which is what i'm on now with the blue signs is 130 kilometers per hour in the dry but 110 kilometers per hour in the wet which is why i'm doing 110 kilometers per hour now which is about 69 miles per hour because it has started raining and the road is now wet when you see a sign with a red border that means you're entering a town or a village or an urban area so the speed limit is 50 kilometers per hour and when you see the name sign with a red line diagonally through it that means you're leaving the urban area and the speed limit should be 80 kilometers per hour or whatever the speed limit said in this case it's 70 here to use french auto routes you will need to pay tolls some you just pay as you get there and others you take a ticket when you enter the toll and then you put the ticket in the machine to pay as you leave as i believe we're about to do now see if i can get close enough to the machine without scratching the car and yes if your steering wheel is on this side of the car in france you definitely need a passenger to help you out oh it's worked good let's go to get from the top of the country at the very top of france to the south of france is probably going to cost you around about 130 euros in toll costs apparently in france you're supposed to give way to the right but i've found that is rarely the case in fact i've not actually seen that once if you have a yellow diamond with a white border then it is your priority however if you see a triangle with a red border and a black x in it then you should give way to the right but i'm yet to see one of those signs at roundabouts you give way to the left and when you're on the roundabout cars should give way to you but there are some roundabouts where you have to give way to cars entering the roundabout the arc the triumph i think is how you say it is an example of that and it looks chaotic generally speaking it seems that the french drivers are fairly patient i know they have a bad reputation but i'm not seeing it they're not giving me abuse anyway and the roads seem to be free-flowing when i've been in france i've made good progress i'm in traffic now but that's because i'm in paris and obviously cities are usually bad there's been an incident up ahead and it's saying on the sat nav it's plus 24 minutes to drive into some french cities you will need a crit air sticker it's their equivalent to the london's lower emissions zone the sticker has a number on it which corresponds to how polluting your car is and the number needs to be lower than the number required to enter the city it's easy to get a sticker you can get it online if you google crit air you should be able to find it and it only cost me about four and a half euros but it takes over a week to get it so plan in advance the road quality in france is generally very good nice smooth good roads even in the villages we've driven right across france and in the tiny little villages there weren't many potholes but once you start driving around paris well the roads have been horrific massive potholes which look dangerous in france traffic lights go straight from red to green there's no amber but there is an amber before they go red in some parts of the world if you drive on the right you can actually turn right when the light is red but that's not the case in france in france you're not allowed to turn right when it's red you must stop also you get zebra crossings normal like the uk but you also have those same markings at traffic lights if those markings are at traffic lights you only need to give way to pedestrians when the lights are red if the light is flashing amber then you can proceed with caution this is one of these roundabouts where i have to give way to cars entering i have to say it's not easy parking in paris is dangerous and what i mean by that is it's dangerous for your car because it probably will get damaged one of my first memories of coming to paris the first time was a smart car trying to park in a space that wasn't big enough and it was going forwards and backwards hitting the car in front and behind trying to open up the space and yesterday when we arrived one of the first things i saw when we got to where we were staying was a car reversing about four or five miles an hour which is quick when you're trying to park and it's smacked into a parked car moving it back about a foot to try and open up some space so i wouldn't leave your car on the streets of paris if i was you this is why i'm on my way to some secure parking um that i've paid for cost about 21 and a half euros but well worth it in my opinion here we are some underground parking well worth the 21.5 euros child seat laws for driving in france are done in weight and they're quite complicated so i'm going to put them on screen because i can't remember them but once the child is heavy enough not to need some kind of child restraint but they're still under the age of 10 then they're not allowed in the front seat they've got to be in the back seat unless all the back seats are already taken by under tens or there are no seat belts in the back seats but seat belts in the front seats when filling up with fuel you want to make sure you get the correct stuff you don't want to put diesel in a petrol car diesel in france is either called diesel or gasol and petrol well it's easier just to look for e5 or e10 or 95 or 98 but it can be called sans plumbo or plumber i'll write that on screen or essence although driving in france generally is fairly straightforward driving around paris however i've done it twice and it's one of the most challenging driving experiences i've ever had it's really complicated there's so many exits on roundabouts that are really close together and sometimes you need to give way to cars entering the roundabout and something you want to be aware of if you see a red flashing light that means no entry so if you have a red flashing light usually on the back of a traffic light that means you can't go down that road or if you have a red light but with an orange flashing arrow you may proceed in the direction of the arrow but you have to give way to anybody else who may be using the road for some reason in france the slip roads have really low speed limits this road is just becoming a 90 now but it was a 110 speed limit road yet the slip road had a 30 kilometer per hour speed limit on it that's a slip road entering the fast road of course you can't do 30 kilometers per hour and join flowing traffic that's doing 110 kilometers per hour that's just dangerous why they do that i don't know if you see a speed limit sign with the word rappel written underneath it that means reminder a 30 kilometer per hour on a big main road what is this about i know there's road works but there's loads of space it's like 20 miles an hour in france there are plenty of speed limits for specific circumstances usually there's something underneath the speed limit like for example it might say 50 per glass which means in ice or might say 3.5 t which means it's for vehicles over that weight or a diagonal arrow pointing down and to the right that means it's for the slip road here's one here 80 3.5 t that means if you're in a vehicle over three and a half tons it's 80 but for me it's still 90. driving at night in france can be more challenging than in the uk because there's no cat's eyes on the road especially when it's wet it can be very hard to see where your lane is the drink drive limit in france is 0.05 whereas in the uk it's 0.08 so it's lower in france but it's recommended that you don't drink anything at all because even one glass of wine may put you over the limits for a period of time like most places these days you're not allowed to use your mobile phone when driving in france and you're not allowed hands-free kits that include an earphone they don't want you to be wearing earphones when you're driving but hands-free kits inside the car their in-built bluetooth hands-free kits that come through the car speakers are okay and you're not allowed to have speed camera detection devices in the car either even if they're switched off you're not allowed them in the car according to the gov uk website in 2019 on french roads there was 4.8 deaths per 100 000 people in the population that compares to just 2.6 deaths per 100 000 people in the population on uk roads so you're nearly twice as likely to die on french roads than you are on uk roads but it is still a small number so although it's twice as likely it's still unlikely the emergency contact number in france for police fire and ambulance is one one two my tip for boarding the train when you're going to and from france is to start as wide as you can as far as you can because the sooner you get your nose in the sooner you can start straightening up so that you don't hit the kerbs so i'm coming quite wide away from the train he wants me to go to the next one i've actually got an easy one i get my nose in as early as i can like that and now i can start straightening as early as i can and then look at the center eyes on the center not the sides if you're going uphill if you're going on the top deck you're not going to be able to see the sides so try to remember where the kerbs are where the center is as well before you go up that hill there'll be posts as well post markers higher to help you know where you're going now i know i said there don't look at the curbs look at the center and then i said know where the curbs are but you've got to know where the curbs are to know where the center is you don't want to focus on the kerbs because when you focus on one curb you tend to either get too close or too far away from that particular curb if you want a tip for driving on the wrong side of the road just remember which side you're sitting next to so in this car with the steering wheel on this side i'm sitting next to the curb in france so i know whenever i get to a junction when i do the junction i better make sure i get myself next to the curb if the steering wheel was on the other side of the car then i'd be next to the middle of the road if you think the video is helpful please give it a thumbs up check out the link to confused.com in the description if you want insurance or european insurance subscribe to get my future videos and until the next one cheerio

Channel: Richard Fanders

Views: 287,907

Keywords: driving in france from the uk, driving round roundabouts in france, giving way on French roundabouts, drink driving limit in France, emergency contact number in France, French motorways, road tolls in France, speed limits in France, legal age for driving in France, petrol and diesel in France, child seats in France, road priority in France, road signs in France, parking in France, driving in Paris, road safety in France, mobile phone laws when driving in France

Id: dNNf90acfHk

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022