Speed limits

Sooty09

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Just returned from 10 days in Northern France, visiting some of my favourite areas.
I knew the speed limit had been reduced Nationally to 80KPH (50MPH) except motorways and roads with a central divider. There has been very little notice about this and opinion seems divided in France, some are obeying totally while others are just as crazy as before. Many of the cameras we passed have been bagged and taped up, others have had the lens painted black. I can cope with 50 most of the time but I was really shocked to find every small village and town has drastically lowered limits, cross roads with two houses and a dog kennel are now 50kph, village centres 30kph with massive speed bumps and so many silly roundabouts.
Every village has an illuminated speed indicator, so you dont have a good excuse if the Law catches you.
Setting off from camp at 10:30 and riding until 16:30 with half hour lunch break we could not cover more than 150 miles on normal roads.
We got so fed up we left France and headed through Belgium, what a difference, sensible limits and such a pleasure to ride through the Ardennes.
 
Did anyone take any great specific notice of the old limit, other than through towns and villages?

France is a huge country, with miles of D roads. They can’t all be policed and camera’d up, surely?

Have the speed humps suddenly appeared, to litter every town and village?
 
Did anyone take any great specific notice of the old limit, other than through towns and villages?

France is a huge country, with miles of D roads. They can’t all be policed and camera’d up, surely?

Have the speed humps suddenly appeared, to litter every town and village?

Ghiribizzo of this parish recently came back from Slovenia via France. He said that most of the drivers in France were religiously sticking to the new limits... :nenau
 
I guess I must use different roads but quite often I rarely see one car (let alone loads) for miles and miles across the French countryside :nenau
 
2500km in the last 2 weeks in France & I saw one manned speed trap, in prime tourist / revenue territory near Mont St Michel. Luckily for me 3 Brit bikers had found plod first & were keeping them entertained :D

Got flashed by forward facing fixed detectors a couple of times. Luckily I had my flip open so they could see my big grin when they reviewed the photos. Possibly flashed from behind too but I think my tax disc might have slipped slightly :rolleyes:

The 30kph speed bumps were a bit of a pain but who wants to fly past schools & shops anyway :nenau Plenty of scope for a bit of fun out in the country with nobody around....
 
August is very busy here. Lots of locals seem to pop out of the woods in their old bangers and mingle dangerously with ‘Parisian’ lunatics in their flash motors. The massive rise in the traffic calming measures in almost every village which drivers from other parts of France are used to negotiating at speed just makes it more dodgy for confused locals and then you add the dozy Dutch and Brits into the mix! Locals also believe in driving at 20kmh below the speed limit wheras visitors prefer 20kmh above so lots of hairy overtakes.
 
We always stick to the quiet roads when visiting France, and didn’t notice anyone taking much notice of the reduced speed limits. One particular petrol tanker doing 110kmh kept us entertained on one occasion!

I get the impression that the reduced limits aren’t heavily policed, but are there in the hope that a percentage of people will slow down.
 
Ghiribizzo of this parish recently came back from Slovenia via France. He said that most of the drivers in France were religiously sticking to the new limits... :nenau

The French don't event stick to religion religiously!
 
There's a number of areas of France that are refusing to prosecute drivers in the 80-90kph band.
Yet others that are relaxing speed limits on some roads in protest.
 
We got so fed up we left France and headed through Belgium, what a difference, sensible limits......

What, like the huge areas with a 42mph limit on all rural roads, they are the worst of the lot these days....

...or would be if they bothered to Police them heavily.

I just consider it a kind of tourist tax lottery.
 
Ghiribizzo of this parish recently came back from Slovenia via France. He said that most of the drivers in France were religiously sticking to the new limits... :nenau

That's exactly what we found....admittedly in early July, when it was all a bit new. It was a bit tiresome, but we didn't see any enforcement effort. I rather think they'll dump it when they realise it is causing more accidents....the same white vans who always were speeding are now trying even harder and taking bigger risks! I think we'll give France a miss next year and explore pastures new. Slovenia looks good, and good value, but the thought of 2 days on German motorway/roadworks doesn't appeal much! What a decision!!
 


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