Home made lights

[Val_2]

Please make sure they work properly if you are coming to France with bikes strapped on the back of your vehicle or even a trailer. Followed a british car yesterday just off the Roscoff ferry with such a home made light bar tied onto four cycles onthe back of an overloaded MPV. The registration number was made from black insulation tape and OK, you could read it but it was beginning to peel and none of the lights worked properly. The vehicle's own rear light clusters were completely obscurred by the cycles so you could not tell in which direction the driver was heading until he turned or even when he was braking. I honked and flashed continuously for a couple of miles and know he saw me but would he stop at several laybys - no, so I hope he gets pulled up and booked for having a vehicle that is dangerous to other road users when all I wanted to do was let him know his lights weren't working. Shan't help anyone else in future especially the brits if this is their attitude to people here.

[Punch]

"Shan't help anyone else in future especially the brits if this is their attitude to people here."

It's not only the Brits to be fair. I live and work in France and drive considerable distances each day and so come across many more French people driving dangerous vehicles than Brits. Unroadworthy cars, home made trailers with no registration plates, tractors with no flashing lights, or (any lights at all), etc etc.  The French equivalent of the MOT, the CT, is less rigorous and needed only every two years so standards of car safety are potentially lower here. I would also say the British driving in France are in general much more courteous than the French. This is borne out by example; as a pedestrian, wait at any pedestrian crossing near a ferry port and see how many French cars stop to let you cross compared with French drivers, even though it is a legal requirement to stop in France! Finally, in my experience I would say that by far the majority of Brit cars on the ferries coming to France are very well kitted out and compliant, with GB stickers, and beam defenders etc. Whilst I agree that this should be pointed out, I think it should be put into perspective in terms of the number of cars arriving here on the ferries on a daily basis.

Paul 

 

[Will]

Punch has a point, the general standard of maintenance of lights on French vehicles and (worse) trailers is postively dangerous. One problem with trailers, light boards, even vehicles is that a simple earth fault at one of the bulb holders - something which can easily occur thanks to corrosion - can result in totally misleading signals, such as a flashing brake light on the left, when it should be the right hand indicator flashing.

But I do agree with Val. There seems to have been a lot of publicity in the British press - or at least the papers we have seen here - about the gendarmes paying particular attention to British vehicles, and Heath Robinson arrangements like that can only invite unwelcome attention, apart from the implications for one's own, and others', safety. Pity the gendarmes don't pay more attention to the untaxed British registered vehicles belonging to long-term residents, but that's another topic altogether which has probably been done to death.

[Leschenauds]

Why should the Gendarmes concern themselves with untaxed UK vehicles? after all they are not paid to collect UK taxes. Gendarmes to whom I have spoken are happy if a vehicle is insured and CT'd as they are aware of delays in the French registration procedures.