French Toll Booth Signage
 

We just drove from Paris to Dinan via the A-13 auto route and found that it has numerous toll booths with as many as 10 or 12 booths you must pass through. Here's my problem, All signs are in French and some take cash, but most are either prepaid toll cards, or credit cards and one or two may actually have a person in the booth who will accept cash. I was able to use my credit card on the first one OK, but then I started to find that the other attempts were rejected by the toll machine. Since I had 2 or 3 cards, on my 3rd or 4th attempt the gate went up and we went on through. Hopefully, I didn't delay the folks behind me too much. Can some one please tell me what sign over the toll booth I should be looking for in order to use cash, vice a credit car? thanks.

PS... It was not uncommon to see french drivers moving perpendicular to the flow of traffic through 8 or 9 laanes of traffic to find a booth that took cash. We enjoyed waiting 2 1/2 hours yesterday for the passage of the riders on the Tour de France race through Dinan enroute to San Malo. That took approximately 3 minutes from the time the first place rider blew past, until the entire pack went through the town. Quite a unique experience. Hope to send a post trip report when we get home on thsi visit. We are living in a 400 year old house on the oldest cobblestone street in town (Rue Le Pitite Fort) The town is one of those hidden gems that need at least 3 or 4 days to enjoy. We have a week... Bon Jour... It's off to Saint Michele and the highest tides of the month tonight...

Check here http://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panne...9age_en_France
Bon voyage!

Merci beaucoup... Looks like I'll have to wait till tommorow for Mont
St-Michel. The workers are still on strike according to Tourist Information...Boo hiss.....avoir

As one of our tour guides said about French strikes: "Welcome to France!"

May I assume that not all booths that accept cash have an attendant and not all booths that accept credit cards have a toll collector in attendance? The example shows a toll attendant accompanying a booth that accepts credit cards.

Thanks for your assistance.

The example also shows the signage for a booth that acccepts payment by "pièces de monnaie."

The workers at le Mont Saint-Michel have been on strike for weeks. I doubt it will be over tomorrow. You can visit, but there are no tours.

The staffed booths are generally (never say always) to the far right. Some times no booths are staffed, have lots of coins handy.

Almost all of the tolls are collected automatically now -- even at the biggest toll plazas you often won't find more than two manned booths compared to 20 lanes for coins, cards or subscription passes.