Parisians are devil-may-care drivers.
Where All Lanes are Fast: the Periphèrique
A Couple of Tips for Survival
By Richard Erickson
Paris Kiosque - May 1998 - Volume 5, Number 5
Copyright (c) 1998 Richard Erickson - used with permission
The Periphèrique
does its service year in and year out and it
is hardly ever mentioned, but lately there have been some
stories about it the press. I saved a really sensational
report about it for several weeks, and I naturally threw
it out two days before the next sensational report appeared.
As everybody knows, Paris is clogged with traffic. This is
somewhat exaggerated and quite often it is fairly easy to
get around, especially about eight on Sunday mornings. There are
two major reasons for not driving yourself in the city:
it can be slow when it is not stopped dead,
and there are no parking spots available.
Okay, to be
truthful, sometimes the traffic moves quite fast and flows smoothly,
and sometimes there are free parking spots. But it is
impossible to tell a visitor the when and where of
either or both, so it is easier to say it
is all impossible and simply recommend buying a 'Paris Visite'
ticket or one of its variants from the RATP.
This
advice is useless to thousands, no - hundreds of thousands
of drivers - who have to transit through the Ile-de-France
or Paris
itself, for any one of several reasons. The most
common one, is that you are going someplace else and
Paris is in the way.
Coming from the north, Paris
can be side-stepped by an easterly route, which is offered
as an option just after passing the airport at Roissy.
I've never tried this, but I understand it connects to
the autoroute to the east - the A4, and eventually
runs into the autoroute du Soleil - the A6. I
think the overhead sign says 'Paris-Est' on it.
From the
same direction, the outer westerly route is incomplete - because
it is not far enough 'out' for several communities it
is planned to pass through. If you come this way,
you will end up thrashing around in Nanterre instead of
hooking up to the westerly A13 to Normandy or the
southwesterly A11 to Bordeaux.
If you are lost in Nanterre
and really only want to go west, look for the
new A14 in Nanterre someplace, because after paying a steep
toll, this will get you to the A13. Nobody likes
this one much because of its Minitel fare structure: you
pay by the metre travelled, the time of day, the
number of car-pool riders, and so on.
Okay, the above
was for prudent folks who don't mind puzzles and driving
some extra kilometres. The following is for people who enjoy
life in the fast lane and high-stakes slot machines.
However
you arrive at Paris; from north, east, south or west
- you are going to head straight for the Periphèrique.
Stop! Before doing this, try to get some inkling of
an idea of where you will hit it and which
direction you want to go to get off it.
If
you get it wrong, you may do nearly a full
circuit. This is annoying but all things come to an
end, and you will get to your correct sortie sooner
or later; so be cool.
Okay, back to the Periphèrique.
The first thing to remember on arriving at this monster,
is you normally have the 'right-of-way.' This means, in theory,
you can just whoosh onto it without worrying if the
outside lane is bumper-to-bumper with metal and rubber. In practice,
slow down a bit, and slot yourself in - cars
coming in this lane should slow down a bit to
let you on.
Next, and this is vital! Get out
of this far-right outside lane as quickly as you can - it is full of other cars, trucks, buses, caravans,
all coming on the Periphèrique with the 'right-of-way' working for
them.
For peace of mind, stay in this lane; call
it 'lane two.' Stay in the middle of the lane,
between the lines. Motorcyclists on the 'big cubes' have the
mistaken impression the lines themselves have been set aside for
them as 'lanes' and if you get too close to
either line, you might get an outside rear-view mirror torn
off.
The 'motards' also want you to watch for them
in your rear-view mirrors, plus signal any lane changes you
intend. If the traffic is dense, you might make a
'change of opportunity,' and upset one of these motards, and
they think this is very inconsiderate.
You are rolling along
in lane two and staying in the middle out of
trouble and watching the approaching exit signs. The one you
want is signaled about two exits in advance. Now comes
the tricky part.
To move to the right-most lane, you
do not have the right-of-way. This lane may be full
of all sorts of moving circuses, plus drivers behind you
going faster than you are, moving into it. Besides
watching for these
- and everything coming on - you must remember not
to upset the motards, although they will probably be two
lanes over to your left - but you can never
tell.
Make the change with your signals on. Whew! Made
it! Just shoehorned in there; just in time. Nothing to
it. Get ready to take the exit. Uh oh -
what's this? A line of cars entering right where you
are supposed to exit! They've got the right-of-way. You have
to criss-cross through this?
You keep your right-turn signals going
but now is the time to stop looking in the
rear-view mirrors. Expand your vision in an arc from straight
ahead around to 120 degrees to the right, in order
not to blind-side anybody, find a hole somehow; one foot
on the gas and the other on the brakes and
fingers crossed - and through you go and up the
exit ramp. After about 15 minutes your pulse will return
to near normal.
That's the basic Periphèrique lesson. The other
major trick it has is changing widths without a lot
of warning; going from four to three lanes is normal.
In summer it can get down to two - or
even be mysteriously closed for repairs, especially at night.
When
there's a lot of traffic, the loss of a lane
is not serious and is signalled by a big jam.
But at night, when some pilots are ticking off 120
or 160 kph, running into fewer lanes can be disconcerting.
Most of the time, driving the Periphèrique is about what
you might have imagined roundy-roundy racing
to be like. At other
times, it seems like a big parking lot, where everybody
is running their motors, talking on portable phones or fuming.
But when it is average, when everybody is more of
less behaving and you are cruising carefully along in the
second lane, the Periphèrique is a quick and uncomplicated way
of getting around Paris - and getting on the road
to where you are going.
One last word: if something
does go wrong, try and get your rig to the
breakdown lane - if there is one. Then get out
of it and get yourself and your loved ones off
the road, well behind any barriers there might be.
The
cops and tow-trucks should arrive within minutes, and if necessary,
ambulances will not be far behind. The whole Periphèrique is
covered by video, and the emergency services have several spots
where they lie in waiting for incidents to happen; under
the direction of two command posts.
Have you got all
this? Have a nice drive.
Driving in France is pretty
much the same as on the Periphèrique, but some what
less hectic. The general rule for right-of-way is everything on
the right has priority - so if you are in
the centre lane on one of the three-lane country roads
and it goes down to two lanes, you do not
have any 'priority' to move to the right lane.
If
you have not driven in France in a long time
there is a new wrinkle to the 'right-of-way.' Many intersections
have been made into mini-roundabouts, and with these the priority
has been reversed. These are naturally counter-clock-wise in traffic direction.
Everything already in them has the right-of-way. Everything coming from
the left in other words.
The biggest roundabout of all,
the Etoile in Paris, still has its 'old' right-of-way; everything
from the right has priority, everybody coming in to it
has the right to enter. You have to give way
and you have no 'right' to leave it.
For the
Etoile, just remember if you run out of gas in
the middle of it - it can be a long
sprint to the centre or to an edge.
Richard Erickson, living in Paris for the last twenty years, has been putting
Paris online as long as anyone. More of his writings can be found in
Metropole Paris
where this article first appeared.
He can be contacted via
erickso@world-net.sct.fr.
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