Understanding car signs and directions in France.
 

We will be driving around France this fall. We don't speak French. Is there a quick reference sheet out there so we can quickly translate common highway directions and directives? Thanks

Look at http://www.alltravelfrance.com/Franc...Road_Signs.htm <BR>

The DK Eyewitness France travel guide has the road signs listed in the back with lots of other useful information.

Go to a good search engine and type in some appropriate keywords. <BR> <BR>www.google.com is a great search engine. I used <BR> <BR>road signs France <BR> <BR>as my keywords and got a bunch of choices, including the one Alec provided. <BR> <BR>This past March was my first experience of driving in France and I found it easy and fun. Fortunately, most French road signs are pictoral and can be figured out on the fly. The one that always got me was the sign with the big exclamation point -- Danger -- and the associated French verbage explaining what the danger was. Of course I could never read the the French so I just continued on oblivious to what lay ahead. <BR> <BR>

Deb, <BR>Go to: <BR>www.ideamerge.com/motoeuropa <BR>Click on "Online Guide" then look at the column captioned "On the Road". Click on "Road signs and Signals" (slow to download) and you'll get pictographs of all the European road signs and their purpose. Click on "Phrase book" and you'll get French/English explanations of sign wordage - what that word under Hans' exclamation point means. Finally, in the right hand column, "Countries", click on France and you'll get the French rules of the road, info on toll roads and the times of English language radio broadcasts in various areas of the country. Quite a site!

Driving is easy in France if you remeber the name of your destination city or the names of major cities that are on the same route. By following the name signs which occur at every intersection you can smoothly get to your destination. There is one traffic sign in French that starts with an "R" (rapport?) that means return to the previous posted speed limit after you leave a town or village.

Joe <BR>'Rappel' under a sign means 'reminder' from rappeler 'to remember', telling drivers that the posted restriction, like speed limit, is still in operation. <BR>Some other useful phrases: <BR>'Cedez le passage' = Give way <BR>'Vous n'avez pas la priorité' = You don't have priority; Give way <BR>Toutes directions = All routes; through road out of town <BR>Poids lourd = Heavy goods vehicle, truck; route for trucks <BR>Déviation = Diversion, detour <BR>Route barrié = Road closed <BR> <BR> <BR>

Most countries in Europoe (western at least) use the international road signs. Get an international driver license from your local auto club and it will have pictures of the international road signs and their meanings. Don't forget that an upside down yield sign is really a stop sign. <BR>