Traffic Control à la française

So...The Rocade, which is the ring road around the city of Bordeaux got its speed limit reduced from 110kph (~68mph) to 90kph (55.8) yesterday. Of course, since this is a big change, you think that all the media outlets would be talking about it, would be warning drivers...maybe even leading up to the change they would have told us. Naw. I had to hear it from Julie who heard it from her taxi driver on the way home from the airport last night...

Ok, ok...so maybe it's just that I don't pay attention to the news (I don't either, I don't watch TV, read French newspapers, frequent French web sites, etc.). So this morning I took it upon myself to check out the local media...It took me 45 minutes to find an article in the Sud-Ouest...Bordeaux's home-town paper. I also found a quick 2 line article on the website of the local TV station (yeah, there's one...ok, there's actually 2, but one is like public access TV).

Anyway, the given reasons for the reduction of the speed limit are less pollution, ok, that's fine, I agree that you're blowing out less noxious chemicals at 55 than at nearly 70, and more fluidity of the traffic. Hmmm. Lower speed means that the traffic will move better. I'm not a traffic engineer, but this seems odd to say the least. How can making slowing people down result in speeding them up? Yes, the speed limit for trucks is 80kph, which means that there tends to be holdups when two trucks try to pass each other...but I still don't see how reducing the speed by 20kph is going to make me get where I'm going faster. I may even agree to nighttime/daytime speed limits. At night, when there are 3 cars in your rearview and one in front of you, doing 55mph is really tedious...I can understand for safety reasons if they wanted the daytime limit to be different...but this strikes me as typical political BS.

My theory is like this: The politicians in Bordeaux want to build a bypass highway that cuts through the Medoc region so all the truck traffic (and vacationers too) can go around the city on their way to Spain/Portugal or from Spain/Portugal. There was a big grassroots movement against this (I think it needs to be done...yeah, I don't want to destroy ancient vineyards either, but something's gotta be done...We don't live in 1952 anymore and the Rocade gets really really backed up during rush hour and most of the day) and it's been "put on hold." I think that the prefect, who's kinda like the governor of the region...except frequently he's (invariably "he") never lived in the region before his posting...He went to ENA, the famous French finishing school, he's buddies with the president or the PM and he gets posted to province for a couple of years before getting a better post in a better city, figured fine you bumpkins, you don't want progress, well now you're really in trouble because I'm going make it impossible to move around the city in any timely manner.

But that's the way it is in France...You are never right. The politicians know what's best for you so shut you're damn mouth and take it. I've tried to explain the concept of a "libertarian" to the French...It's like talking to a wall, really.

Anyway, you gotta figure at least they'll give everyone a breaking-in period for the new speed limit where anyone travelling less than 110kph will get a warning, but not a ticket. The CRS (the French riot police, who do traffic control when there are no riots) gave out a ticket for 91kph at 10am yesterday (4 hours after the change went into affect). Come on, it's 90 euros for the government coffers that we're talking about, we can't pass that up. Vive la France mes amis!