Lyon to Val d'isere

Ace wrote in message
Joe,

To be honest if you get caught behind a bus after BSM going up the mountain,
there's not much chance of overtaking so it will take just as much time to
get to Val !

Don't believe a word of it. A decently powerful car and some
rudimentary driving skills mean that I'd typically overtake anything I
encounter on the drive up and down.

Yeah, the coach drivers don't seem to have much problem with overtaking,
even in heavy snow =8^0

Ace wrote:
wrote:

Ace wrote:
[...]
But be careful of the local fuzz. Got nicked for overtaking on a white
line
[...]

Dammit ! The man's gone native !

Heh. Thankfully I still have a Swiss licence, so no points to lose,
just the 90 Eu fine.


I have not made any progress with this although I have used up
one-or-two favors with notaries and others than prudence would merit.

In short:

(a) No-one seems to know what is going on.

(b) There is a big gulf between theory and practice, possibly due to
the quantity of administration involved.

My conclusion of my enquiries and 'experimentation' is that it is
safe to continue at the present time.

As far as the French speeding over-excitement goes, I am not able to
detect much of a change. And one of our number managed to reach a
highly respectable 324km/h on one section, in spite of the doom I
poured out at the drivers' briefing.

Further, I have seen some first-rate acts of road-hooliganism by
native motos who clearly knew their stretch of autoroute was
unobserved by man or machine.

(The radar jammer works with the fixed cameras by-the-way)

I do not visit France much although it has been useful to use it for
the downward/upward leg of a 'run'. I do not ski in France socially,
(and have not done for some time) mainly due to the nature and
quantity of the people whom do so. But will venture, on occasion,
solely for reasons of weather or terrain - so no real inconvenience.

It is most pleasant to be hurtling along an autobahn in a 230km/h
outside-lane draft thinking to myself "the French cannot do this
without ending up in a tangled heap of wreckage and bodies."


Was almost worth it to see the flic's face when
my reaction to his lectures was basically "Well, I could see far
enough, so it was safe, and I'm buggered if a stupid white line's
gonna stop me doing it again.

Not in so many words, natch, but I don't think he was in any doubt
about the disdain in which I held him and his poxy silly little fine.
Thankfully they couldn't find a single thing wrong with the car,
despite their best efforts, so I considered it a 1-1 draw, with me
claiming the moral victory on away goals.


Caution ... is advised....

The main objective of any brush with authority is to fail to attract
any attention and be both unremarkable and unmemorable.

This can be difficult, I admit, particularly with French 'authority'.

Indifference, perhaps contempt, can be exuded if one is presented with
some kind of moral lecture in addition to the facts of the law.

Try this (it works best on a dark and blustery night in the middle of
nowhere):

As the cop vehicle halts, make sure you are as close as possible with
your belt already off. Leave the auto with haste and immediately
present yourself at the door of the passenger side of the cop vehicle,
where the cop with be finding his flashlight and notebook, etc.

Admittedly it works best if you are large, menacing and look like a
marauding deserter from the Soviet Army, but it is a lot of fun to see
the fear on the cops' faces as they think they are about to get
whacked.

Cops, in most countries now, are trained to halt their vehicle a
distance from the perpetrator's vehicle, then the cop in the passenger
seat is meant to come forward while the other stays at the ready.

And, as Hunter S.Thompson points out in his essay on dealing with
cops, the situation has moved from one where the cops are in control
to where you are in control.

"funkraum" wrote in message
...
| Ace wrote:

| I do not visit France much

[Intelligent beings throughout the Hexagon breathe a collective sigh of
relief]

| Was almost worth it to see the flic's face when
| my reaction to his lectures was basically "Well, I could see far
| enough, so it was safe, and I'm buggered if a stupid white line's
| gonna stop me doing it again.

[Intelligent beings anywhere sigh in despair]

Pete

"funkraum" wrote in message
...

My conclusion of my enquiries and 'experimentation' is that it is
safe to continue at the present time.

[plenty of irresponsible stuff snipped]

It depends on your definition of safe. The *really* safe option is to
respect the highway code in general and the speed limits in particular.

"Marco Cattaneo" wrote:
"funkraum" wrote in message

My conclusion of my enquiries and 'experimentation' is that it is
safe to continue at the present time.

[plenty of irresponsible stuff snipped]

It depends on your definition of safe. The *really* safe option is to
respect the highway code in general and the speed limits in particular.


Excellent advice - particularly for the French.

I have seen so many French drivers ignore the solid white line in the
middle of the road, even though I knew its meaning, on one occasion I
had to ask a native if the rules of the road had changed recently.

(Discounting for a moment the fact that the French placement of the
solid white line in the middle of the road is not always as well
though-out as it could be).