Im_and_Er

I drive both RHD and LHD and I can assure you that I hold nobody up in either !.

Confusedinfrance

I think the big point is that we are not English and the French are not French.....we are all Europeans but the French forget this.....everything should be an across the board thing.....cross referenced on the computers. Not likely to happen because the French resist change, as we all know. I asked the question once about going back to the UK to live and getting car insurance and was told no UK company would insure on the basis of no claims in France. Shocking !! So it is not just the French who are difficult. I despair sometimes of all the paperwork involved in getting a simple thing done.

Touraine

So lets say you are stuck behind a tractor pulling a trailer or an artic in your RHD on twisty but open French country roads and I am behind you in my LHD.

You can't see if its clear to overtake without dropping back and putting your neck out leaning across the passenger seat.

I am in a hurry. I can see its clear but I am waiting for you to make a decision. Do I overtake you and the artic and hope that you don't pull out or do I just wait ?????

If you are towing a caravan I start to cry.

Chatter Static

If there is a queue to overtake a tractor you should wait your turn, if you overtake a artic and a tractor and there is a good chance you will get sideswiped at speed because you will end up in a blind spot and if that is the point the arctic driver decides to pull out it will get messy.


Dont complain about the traffic if you are the traffic, Simples.


UK Highway Code

Im_and_Er

The 6th EU directive on motor insurance (para 28) requires:

Any person wishing to take out a new motor insurance
contract with another insurer should be in a position to
justify his accident and claims record under the old
contract. The policyholder should have the right to
request at any time a statement concerning the claims,
or the absence of claims, involving the vehicle or vehicles
covered by the insurance contract at least during the
preceding five years of the contractual relationship. The
insurance undertaking, or any body which may have
been appointed by a Member State to provide
compulsory insurance or to supply such statements,
should provide this statement to the policyholder
within 15 days of the request

It does not stipulate what a new insurer must do with it !

touraine, you sound like the typical 'I'm in a hurry and sod everyone else' French driver although in your own mind you probably believe yourself to be the best driver on the road !

Touraine

No, not at all. Driving bores me to death. Really. I prefer my MTB.

But, having driven a RHD in France when I first arrived here and a LHD in the UK (including trips to the peak district and Lake District) I will say with confidence that having the steering wheel on the right side is a lot safer. I can't see how anyone could disagree on that point.

Chatter Static

Personally I think it's down to the awareness of the driver...

cardi

Quite right.
A good driver will drive in accordance with the conditions and the vehicle.

JWL

Watching drivers with the wheel 'on the wrong side' struggling to get the money into the car park machine upon exit is always worth a laugh..

Novocastrian

If I may be permitted, I have an amusing story in connection with that.

My 87 year old FIL who lives in Newcastle still insists on driving himself (alone) to the ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge and from there to Basse-Normandie every summer, in his RHD C5, quite a wide car.

He's getting to the point where he can't stretch across the car at the toll booths on the autoroutes along his way, so this year he (actually we) had the bright idea on putting the money in a long handled frying pan and offering it that way through left hand window.

This caused several toll booth attendants to succumb to uncontrollable mirth, especially when one time the paper money got caught in the wind and disappeared.

So we concocted plan B and substituted a child's fishing net on a pole for the frying pan.

Worked a treat.

Chatter Static

Some wazzock in a Gibraltar plated RHD high end car nearly sideswiped us at the coast at the weekend, he decided to pull out left to go round a bus on a dual lane section without looking in his mirrors or looking to his left where we were sat in our car, In hindsight I wish I had let him hit our car it would have made for a very expensive insurance claim, but I have noticed a trend of expensive car drivers being off with the fairies.

Gypsy57

So what about if you're a new driver with a new car...?? How complicated will that be?

JWL

Maybe, but I think it has more to do with physics. If you're on the wrong side, you're on the wrong side. Awareness doesn't really help a lot when you can't see to overtake safely or pay your parking fee in less than 10 minutes.

JWL

This is typical of France. Why don't THEY have nets at toll booths to collect from RHDs?

Tweedpipe

The answer of course is that they would request an increase in salary at having to be trained, and then use extra 'tools' to perform their job. The increased salaries for toll and car-park operators etc would in turn lead to Flamby imposing an additional net tax (see what I did there!), which would result in discontent, manifestations, and mass lynchings of anyone found driving a rhd vehicle.