French government's speed camera policy mess

The French government has got itself into a right pickle over its decision to remove road signs warning motorists they were entering an area monitored by speed cameras or radar.

The interior minister - the seemingly omnipresent Claude Guéant - announced earlier this month that the signs would be disappearing from French roads and motorways.

It was part of the government's reaction to the increase in the number of deaths in road accidents in April - a jump of almost 20 per cent over the same month last year.

There were grumblings within the governing Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP) from parliamentarians that they hadn't been consulted, and from organisations representing motorists such as 40 millions d'automobilistes which insisted that the signs had "an instructive role as they informed drivers they were entering a dangerous area and would certainly be fined if they didn't watch their speed."

But Guéant persisted. The signs would disappear, "The decision was final and there would be no going back."

He was supported up by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who perhaps seeing a simple chance to appeal to the electorate (not that he's in campaigning mode of course and after all who can turn round and say they're in favour of road deaths increasing?) insisted that he would not "allow a rise in the number of deaths caused by road accidents" and the measure was one he would "absolutely not give up on."

Even the prime minister François Fillon, usually so savvy in assessing the strength of public opinion, threw his hat into the ring to support the decision.

That favourite of French pastimes, "polemic" then went into overdrive with some members of the governing UMP arguing that they fully supported the government's decision while others were less than happy as the first signs were removed last week.

So unhappy in fact that a group of 73 of them wrote to Fillon to express the anger and frustration felt by "millions of electors".

Oh yes - France is in a pre-election year, both presidential and parliamentarian, just in case you hadn't realised).

"We share your ambition to treat road safety issues seriously but we're disappointed by the complete lack of consultation there has been," they wrote.

"In addition we believe that there are other more urgent measures that could be taken to improve road safety that wouldn't be so unpopular."

Did you see that? "Wouldn't be so unpopular."

Pre-election year remember.

Speed camera (from Wikipedia)

On Tuesday the government announced that it was stopping the process of doing away with road signs indicating speed radar.

Or rather it sort of made that announcement.

Or rather it didn't make that announcement at all.

You can judge for yourself from the somewhat confusing explanation Guéant gave viewers during an interview on France 2's prime time evening news.

"There's no change in policy," he insisted.

"Road safety remains a priority."

All right so far. But then it gets complicated.

"I confirm that the signs indicating the presence of a radar will be removed," he continued.

Right.

"They'll be replaced by signs indicating the speed at which a motorist is driving."

Hmm.

"But these new signs won't necessarily be in exactly the same place as the previous signs telling drivers they were entering an area monitored by radar."

Huh?

"There'll always be a new sign (indicating speed) at some distance near to where there's a fixed camera but there'll also be the same sign at points where there's no radar.

It'll be up to local authorities to decide where exactly they will be. "

Confused?

Apparently the very existence of those new signs, which only "sometimes" indicate the presence of a radar isn't backtracking of any sort.

But somehow the government has managed to ties itself into knots and come up with an inspired policy that was already in place - well more or less.

Duh!

Loose horses bring motorway to a standstill

Drivers on a motorway in eastern France had more than just the usual rush hour traffic to contend with on Wednesday morning after 23 horses broke loose from an equestrian centre and galloped their way to freedom.

Horse rescue on A36 motorway, screen shot FR3 Television

Somehow the 23 horses from equestrian centre in the village of Brognard managed to escape from a field in which they had been grazing and headed off towards the A36.

As the regional daily L'Est républicain reports, once the cavalcade hit the motorway between the towns of Montbéliard and Belfort, the horses panicked, breaking up into smaller groups and galloping off in different directions.

Police, firefighters and workers on a nearby high-speed railway line joined forces to take matters in hand, reports the paper, but it still took a couple of hours for all the horses to be rounded up before the traffic could return to normal.

(You can see some more photos of the rescue on the newspaper's site)

The only wounds the horses sustained apparently were to a couple of cuts that needed stitches and one horse which required a sedative after finding itself trapped between the motorway's security barriers.

The whole incident could have had a far unhappier ending as a spokesman for the equestrian centre said when contacted by the French website Le Post.

There had been 38 horses in total in the field but 15 of them had stayed put.

"The other 23 are now back in their boxes and are under observation," the spokesperson told the website.

"Fortunately no person was injured during the breakout and there wasn't a pile up on the motorway."

Des chevaux sur l'A 36

Panicking ponies join busy Paris traffic

Now here's a sight you don't see every day in Paris - thank goodness.



And one motorists on the boulevard périphérique, the busy ring road around the French capital, probably had a hard time believing: riderless ponies galloping through the traffic.

It happened on Saturday afternoon as some children were out riding ponies belonging to the Cartoucherie equestrian centre located next to the Bois de Vincennes in the east of Paris.

They - the ponies that is - were suddenly startled and hurtled off to join the traffic as this amateur video, featured on the website of the national daily edition of Le Parisien - Aujourd'hui en France, shows.

Des poneys en cavale sur l'A4 et le périph parisien
par thony911

"Some cars arrived that were driving too fast and sounded their horns," Raphaël Mollion, the director of the centre said.

"One of the ponies took fright and started the stampede with the others following."

In total eight ponies threw their riders and headed off into the distance towards the busy boulevard périphérique, some making it as far as to a stretch of one of the motorways leading into Paris - the A4.

While several of the panicking ponies were rounded up quite quickly, others eluded police and firefighters for nearly two hours before they too ended their dalliance with delights of Paris traffic - and French drivers - and were caught.

"It could all have ended very differently," admitted Mollion.

"None of the children who fell off the ponies was hurt, and neither were any of the ponies."

Motorway madness in France - changing drivers at 130km/h

While most motorists might get from A to B with only the slightest of hitches and the minimum of mistakes there are also of course plenty of daft driving stories, plain stupid ones, those involving reckless fools and others simply defying belief.

What follows surely is a tale that falls into each of the idiotic categories - and then some.

And it just goes to show that mad motorway stories aren't confined to summer speeding when the media is hunting around for the unusual to fill the airwaves or column inches.

On Tuesday highway police patrolling a stretch of the A10 motorway in the département of Vienne in central-western France stopped a car because they had spotted the driver and passenger exchanging seats.

Maybe that should be capitalised to add emphasis.

No, obviously the car wasn't stationary as the driver and passenger swapped places otherwise the police wouldn't have had to stop it.

Instead it was cruising along at the official speed limit on French motorways of 130 km/h or just over 80 mph!

The less-than judicious manouevre came to the attention of the police because as the two attempted to change places their vehicle (not surprisingly perhaps) suddenly dropped speed to a more modest 60 km/h or 37 mph.

When the car was pulled over at the next rest area and the police had checked the papers of both the driver and the passenger, it transpired that son who had been trying to hand over control of the vehicle to his 70-year-old father had in fact had his licence suspended:

"Something that probably explains why the two were willing to take such a risk", according to police.

Among the offences with which both men have been jointly or individually charged are driving with a suspended licence, not wearing seat belts and - as if it needed to be spellt out - "driving under conditions that didn't allow for easy manouevring."

Legalese presumably for "dangerous driving".

Their fate will be determined by a judge.