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The road signs that teach travellers about France
- BitsAndObjects 7mo agoThe “Grapes in a Cognac glass” image looks like an electric car charger symbol lol
- bbx 7mo agoThese road signs are iconic. They’re noticeable but not distracting. They inform without imposing themselves. There’s something very soothing about them. If you’ve ever taken the A10 motorway France between Bordeaux and Paris, it’s about a 500 km stretch that is fairly straight and, thus, a bit boring. But seeing these golden signs along the road was always a small event for me as a kid. They act as sporadic milestones: every time you see one, you know you’ve made progress and entered a new region.
- eastbound 7mo agoThose monuments (from humans or from nature) should be obvious knowledge, but I generally don’t know any of them. It helps pacing the road trip, and be able to say “Mom, I’m at the level of the [Sainte Baume, for me]”.
- Glawen 7mo agoThey are shown on Michelin maps and atlas. We love to travel using the atlas and stopping on interesting sights or roads. Usually in France you can go from A to B the fast and boring way, or the slow and scenic way which is perfect for holiday time
- suoer 7mo ago[dead]
- angry_octet 7mo agoNever able to pay attention to them as I'm hyper alert to « CÉDEZ LE PASSAGE » signs, or the absence of one telling me I don't have to give way, which means I don't have priority, and some random local could barrel out at 90km/h.
- ninja3925 7mo agoThese signs are mostly on the highway
- amatecha 7mo agoInteresting, I've driven in 15 different European countries and found France to be one of the easiest and most chill. I mean, on the highways and city streets, anyways -- not so much on the farmland single-lane roads that shockingly have a speed limit of 90km/h lol ... but regardless, the "people merging in from the right have the right-of-way" actually makes sense to me since they're engaging in the most "high-pressure" action, while those of us strolling along on the highway can just adjust our speed to give them space, or change lanes ahead of time as needed.
- rkomorn 7mo agoI don't think they're talking about merging on a highway? Sounds like they're talking about the fact that at an intersection, unless signaled otherwise, the people coming from the right have right of way.
- amatecha 7mo agoWell, the signs described in the article are only used on the highways, so if they were talking about non-highway driving I guess they may have missed that detail heh
- angry_octet 7mo agoI'm not talking about highways but country roads. The signs cancelling give way to the right are used in many urban and rural locations. But the absence of them doesn't always mean give way to the right -- you might be able to see they have a stop sign, or the smudge of a line indicating a stop sign you can't see. It's incredibly bad design.
- razorbeamz 7mo agoJapan has similar signs for cities along the highway.
- gerdesj 7mo agoI remember being a passenger in an Audi 80 Avant with windsurf boards n that on the roof, traveling from the ruhr in northern Germany to southern Spain, in around 1985. We went via la rue du soleil or a sodding great motorway through France - north to south. We had to slow down to 80mph in France.
- amatecha 7mo agoThese are awesome, but the downside is when you already have your day(s) planned out and didn't know about the super-appealing landmark or attraction they depict! Still, they do help set the tone that you are traveling through places with tons of history and awesome cultural destinations worth checking out.
- YZF 7mo agoThey need to teach how to use their crazy roundabouts... EDIT: https://youtube.com/shorts/Fs8h9SRqJ5I?si=eZNm9p5HirXkknmU https://youtube.com/shorts/Fs8h9SRqJ5I?si=eZNm9p5HirXkknmU
- marci 7mo agoThat's just a regular rounndabout. I thought you were talking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OGvj7GZSIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OGvj7GZSIo
- YZF 7mo agoHeh. Let's do a quick survey though. In France who has the right of way? The car that is already in the roundabout or the car entering the roundabout?
- athrun 7mo agoIn France, in absence of contrary indications (ie: absence of signs, traffic signals, or line markings), it's "Priority to the Right". So if it's an actual roundabout (aka, "rond-point"), then normal traffic rules apply for intersections: Priority to the Right. Vehicles already on the roundabout must yield to cars entering it. Often, you have what is referred as "Carrefours à sens giratoire", which can very much look like "rond-points", but priority is to the vehicles already on the roundabout. For this reason, there will be a yield sign at the entrance of the roundabout to make it clear there's a special rule that applies to it. Sometimes you have traffic lights as well.
- YZF 7mo agoMost of the world doesn't have 6x6 lane uncontrolled intersections where people need to yield to the right. In fact your average 2 lane intersection with traffic lights, here in North America, once those traffic lights don't work for some reason it becomes almost impossible to navigate the intersection despite the "priority rules" being more or less known. It just becomes total chaos because there is usually enough traffic to just keep one direction going forever given that everyone slows down. Even with one lane intersections North America usually uses "all stop" if there's any amount of traffic to regulate the flow. I just hate multi-lane roundabouts in general but the French ones I dislike even more. There's a lot more that you need to keep track of, the traffic in the roundabout and the traffic that wants to enter.
- robrain 7mo agoWe love these signs when we're touring. In our motorhome we're normally going slow enough that we can just turn off the autoroute or else log interesting sites for a future trip. I'm British-Canadian so the European roads hold no fear for me. I'd say to any worried North Americans (roundabouts, kms, aires), just do it some time - France in particular is a chilled place to drive motorhomes (RVs if you must) and I've never had any grief. We avoid Paris and other dense urban areas, but the beautiful countryside and easy autoroutes make for an excellent tour. We're off to Norway next month and I hope the signage is as interesting.
- riffraff 7mo agoI do not remember signage to be particularly interesting in Norway but they do have some of the most spectacular routes in Europe!
- sam_lowry_ 7mo agoMotorhomes pay double toll on French highways, they are over 2m high. It quickly adds up, and anyway the cruising speed of a motorhome is ~100 km/h, so you don't win much over nationales, and the view is worse on a highway.
- robrain 7mo agoTotally, we mix things up route-wise for that reason.
- poisonborz 7mo agoThis is not a specifically french sight, similar signs are common across whole Europe.
- ahartmetz 7mo agoSeems like they were invented in France in the 70s (I looked it up). I think they started to appear in Germany later than that, about early 2000s.
- Glawen 7mo agoThey are not as common in Germany as in France in my experience. I would rather prefer to visit a german castle than waiting for the Stau to disappear.
- ahartmetz 7mo agoIn Germany, there's a guideline for a minimum distance between such signs so that they still stand out. Though I have seen a few that were closer than the supposed minimum of 20 or 30 km or so.
- Ylpertnodi 7mo ago"Stau". International word, now.
- dghf 7mo agoThe ones in the UK are much more minimalist: logos and symbols rather than detailed drawings.
- aaron695 7mo ago[dead]
- d--b 7mo agoOh I didn’t realize these only existed in France! These are cool indeed. I think their placement is weird though. They really don’t tell you how to get there. Sometimes they are very far from the thing they advertise. And you really shouldn’t go off the motorway when you see the sign. It could be quite confusing when you actually are planning to go to that place. Also a bunch of places that are shown in the sign are privately owned like zoos and recreation parks. These tend to be iconic ones but it still feels a little off.
- riffraff 7mo agoWell, they don't, I've seen them at least in Hungary and Italy. Still, it is possible France came up with them first.
- Ylpertnodi 7mo ago> They really don’t tell you how to get there. That's French, and Italian, roadsigns in general.
- arjie 7mo agoDriving around America, you'll see they have these brown background signs telling you about museums and parks and stuff like that. We often stop by these to just take a look and it blows my mind how rich this country is that some random little lake somewhere will have a full blown parking lot and restroom and will look spick and span. There'll be a couple of those standard-issue picnic tables and standard-issue signboards describing the place. I really love these random stops.
- riffraff 7mo agoI think the brown signs for "sights" which are the same shape as road directions are kinda standardized? I've been seeing them in Europe for decades too. These ones with more detailed drawings are less common, but I've also seen them in multiple countries (at least my home town in Italy and some cities in Hungary have them).
- fainpul 7mo ago> how rich this country is that some random little lake somewhere will have a full blown parking lot Aren't the parking spaces required by law, instead of "because we're rich"? I don't know, but I just watched the latest Not Just Bikes video, where he mentions legal requirements for stores to provide lots of parking spaces, which makes everything more expensive.
- shoxidizer 7mo agoParking minimums are implemented during building permitting. Natural lakes don't have building permits, and the parking is often constructed by the state.
- numlock86 7mo agoAs a European I don't know a single country I have visited that doesn't have these kind of signs.
- cryptonym 7mo agoLooks like it was invented in France and spread later to other countries.
- mattrighetti 7mo agoYeah, I remember I’ve seen those signs in Luxembourg and Germany as well! We don’t have that in Italy though
- sbinnee 7mo agoReading this article, I just realized that it is something I didn't appreciate enough when I was living in France. In Korea, my home country, you can find a lot of signs for local temples, though. But they do not have identities like French ones. There are some signs too but they are mostly commercial restaurants, local farms, and so on. And they are usually ugly with big letters with saturated colors; red and yellow.
- reddalo 7mo agoItaly, Denmark and Germany also have similar signs: brown, with a drawing (expect Italy, which has photos).
- kakacik 7mo agoYeah its not a rocket science but rather tourism 101 for which every country has dedicated office & budget to support and grow. It may be easier to list western places which don't have them in places where they should.
- grougnax 7mo agoFrance did not invent them.
- gpvos 7mo agoThat's not very informative. Who invented them then?