Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Calling our French Residents

[Rob B]

Post from another forum recevied this morning. Is this true?!

"Just a note of warning for those venturing to or through France from now on.

Filtering on any road, even at a congested junction in France is from now on is seen as
undertaking. It is treated seriously and immediately carries a fine of 135 Euro + 3 Points and
the possibility of up to 3 years behind bars.
New powers have been given to the Police to effect the new law!!"

We should be told

Rgds, Rob

[Edited on 21-10-2005 by rob41b]

[Tonio600]

What does filtering mean? Overtaking by the RH side? Overtaking on the white line? When I was still in France they already spoke about preventing bikers to do that...

[BDG]

Have the French recently cloned Tony B.liar and nicked a load of our civil serpents to work over there?

[FiscusFish]

See 'em try and enforce that on the Peripherique.... Not enough gendarmes in France....

[rcgbob44]

Bloody frogs!

[PB]

Unfortunately, the French seem to have adopted a 'grass is greener....' approach to traffic control: Hence the rush to adopt anything the Brits do - i.e. speed cameras, and blaming all traffic accidents on excessive speed (it was all blamed on drink driving until recently...). They have become much stricter on speeding, with the consequences increasing in proportion to the extent by with the speed limit is exceeded. As soon as the limit is exceeded by 50kph they become rather nasty.

As was the case, most radar traps are set up at, or near, villages, but they seem to have been more prolific these last few months....... so far I have only seen radar traps on the motorways & A roads (famous last words...)

[Tonio600]

I think it's a good approach. They have reduced of about 2000 dead people on the roads in 3 years or something like this. That's very good. I like that kind of policy, because it's the only one which can work with us, French people.

Unfortunately we are still some kind of "Gaulois" (our ancestors). We like to eat, we like to drink, dance and sing. We are not very polite, and we don't like people who are not polite with us. And more than everything, we don't care about rules... we might only respect rules which suit us.

That's why there is no other solution to make the French drive better than forcing them to drive slower. You want to drive fast? Fine, you'll have to pay for speeding. I even think we need more and more of your speed cameras, as soon as drivers are aware of them. There is no trap, you have been warned. That's the way to deal with us. And it works. Of course the governement is not loved, you don't like when you're forced to do something. But the way French drive is changing, I noticed it last year...

[phillc]

I always wondered about filtering in the UK, especially betwen the lane of oncoming traffic, as opposed to filtering between two lanes going in the same direction as yourself.

I ride in London almost every day and initially (from Aust. 5 years ago) couldn't believe my eyes with what I saw. Now, I do it as much as the next rider - couriers excepted.

What is the actual law about this?

I went the wrong side of a median strip once and a panda about 5 cars ahead turned on lights and gestured me over. Said "You know better than to go the wrong side of that strip. Don't do it again, idiot". But that's as near as I've come to being stopped.

The other side of the filtering in heavy traffic coin is that they need to catch you first.

I only found out the other day that "undertaking" on a Motorway is illegal. I do it all the time when slow f*ckers won't get out of the far right lane.

[ath748]

You sure it's no wind up, as it is the anniversary of us kicking their asses at Trafalgar today.

[Tonio600]

what's Trafalgar? In what country is that track???