Driving in France - my experience

1. Check to see everyone has their Driver's Licenses as well as passports!

My word! Thanks for the mid-trip report. Just getting to CDG in a taxi is a puzzle and I'm sure I would still be circling trying to find the rental car return!!

Have a wonderful time in London and on your last night in Paris!

(editing to add...I made the 1st # a 5 but it changes it to a 1 when I post!)

Glad you got it figured out. We found driving in France very easy, but didn't drive in Paris. Our rental agency asked to see our International Driver's Permit.

Enjoy the rest of your travels!

That sounds mentally exhausting, since you weren't expecting to do that. Did you and your daughter already have your IDPs?

Glad it worked out for you and hope you didn’t get any grey hairs from the experience. Finding the rental car return at airports is (to me) always the most stressful part of renting a car. Over a number of trips Madrid’s airport was a pain due construction, return entrance changing, very small sign pointing in the right direction, etc. The last couple trips and I think I’ve got it down. I’ve only returned at CDG once and I don’t recall the ease of return.

Interestingly, I’ve never had a large deposit hold placed on the card. Usually it’s only a couple hundred dollars.

We arrived safely at CDG only to get turned around in how to find rental car return. I felt captured in a rental car purgatory where I was trapped circling terminals and dodging parking forever.

Been there and done that, I can confirm it was the single worst car rental return experience of my life at CDG.

Never again.

About the International Driving Permit:
My daughter-in-law had hers since she had thought she might be a secondary driver occasionally . I did not since I had no intention of driving at all. The rental car company did not care about IDP, they only wanted our regular drivers license.

Carol,
Glad you made it! Yes, returning a car at CDG is not easy. We went around one time before getting in the right lane for return. We have picked up a car more than once at CDG, and navigating the airport isn't fun, but if you can be patient and not in a hurry, you can do it without too much anxiety. I find that many airports make it difficult to get to the car rental return, and train station returns in France are no fun either. (I'm looking at you Marseille and Bordeaux!)

I don't understand the large deposit hold on your CC, having never encountered that. Perhaps because of the last minute driver change? And yes, car sizes/passenger and luggage numbers are way off. Back in 1988 we looked at a "4 person convertible" on line. That turned out to be a Deux Chevaux (CV2). Hah! We did know better than to rent that one.
Congrats on your successful drive!

Did you need to take out a second mortgage to pay the French Autoroute tolls? :o)

The French superhighway system is the best I've ever experienced, but boy howdy it's expensive.

We will always remember that drive back to CDG from the Loire Valley and taking the peripherique where there were so many lanes (8?) going in one direction, people driving a hundred miles an hour or so it seemed and me trying to navigate when I needed glasses to read but not for distance. So I was trying to read the map and look for the road signs at the same time. This was before cell phones and gps. By the time we found what we thought was the exit, we had sped past it. Luckily we knew a little of the geography of France and that heading towards Lille would be a safe bet. We made it in one piece to CDG thankfully. We still laugh about it to this day.

I've lived in France for over a decade. I had to pass both the theoretical and practical tests (in French) to get my French driver's license, again over a decade ago.

I've driven to practically every corner of l'Hexagone on all types of roads, and I'm always impressed by people complaining about the cost of tolls in France.

Yes, toll roads cost money. Yes, they almost always save time. It's up to the driver to determine if the value of the time saved is worth the cost of the tolls.

The answer, in my opinion, is almost always, "Yes."

But,

Did you need to take out a second mortgage to pay the French Autoroute
tolls?

After spending probably over a thousand dollars to fly to France, several hundred or over a thousand in hotel costs, several hundred to over a thousand in restaurant costs, one has to wonder

When we drive (our usual mode of transporation in France), we prefer to take the D roads (not toll roads) and plan for the extra time it may take. As a matter of fact, we like the "delays" we encounter by stopping at an interesting town or site. We sort of meander. So the tolls aren't an issue. However, when we want to get somewhere fast, we accept the toll costs as part of the time saving expense. In the big picture of a trip to France we allow for tolls as a small part of our trip cost.

I prefer to drive from England to southwest Germany (B-W or Saar) and even Frankfurt (Main) via the French autoroutes and pay the tolls and take an extra hour or so versus the faster free route via Belgium and Luxembourg (even though on that route I can fill up in Luxembourg at a fraction of the price in nearby countries).

I just like to settle in and have a boring yet uneventful steady speed, and I'm willing to pay money and time for that.

I love the French toll roads. They’re so easy to drive. I’m happy to pay the cost. Holidays are expensive anyway and I’m all for making things as pleasant as possible. It’s supposed to be fun.

Yikes, you have more patience than I do — I think my reaction at the rental counter would have been son, you’re the one who wanted this car and said you would drive it, since you can’t due to your negligence, our trip will now be by train. I’ll make the alternative arrangements and you can cover any resulting additional costs … Or, plan B, your wife can drive you, see you back in Paris.

Apparently our Normandaise friend believes my post was intended as something other than a light-hearted jape regarding the high French Autoroute tolls. It was not, and I'm happy to pay the tolls, as the road quality is unsurpassed in my international driving experience. But they're also certainly the highest toll-per-mile I've experienced as well, and by a wide margin. One gets what one pays for, and vice versa.

If you are used to American round-abouts, the rules in France seemed to be different when we were driving there three months ago. In the US, cars in the round-about have priority. In rural France, we noticed many cars entering round-abouts expected cars already in the round-about to yield. Just something to be aware of when driving.

it is that French law - "priorité à droite"

The yellow diamond is often crossed out prior to roundabouts

Other than at the Arc de Triomphe, cars entering the roundabout yield to those already established on the roundabout. Please, let's not mislead or confuse people.

If they are SUPPOSED to do that, we encountered a lot of drivers in rural France that did not do that. I was not trying to confuse people, just alerting them to the fact that lots of drivers do that! This happened in the area around Carcassonne, in the Dordogne, and in Brittany. I am NOT trying to confuse people, just alerting them to what our experiences were.

Be careful not to confuse a roundabout like at the Place de l'Etoile in Paris where priority is given to those entering the roundabout and a "carrefour à sens giratoire" (traffic circle) which is identifiable by the "Yeld" signs at each entrance to the "circle".

We've driven about 2 months in France this summer, and the road roundabouts have worked exactly like those in the US in every instance we've encountered. Note we have not visited Paris yet.

Spain is a little different. Here they're usually signalized in the urban areas, often with multiple signals. It's been a little challenging to figure them out.

We have a lot of rotaries (i.e., "roundabouts") in New England. I find here and in Europe that they are a great way to keep traffic moving along without unnecessary delays due to lights. But they do require that you drive assertively (some call it aggressive, but sometimes that term is just used to blame people whose driving you don't like). If you sit back waiting for a few football field's worth of space or a special invitation, you'll never get in. So some may mistake people just assertively entering the rotary when they can to be those people not yielding. But you just have to make your move when you can. And in many of them, coming to a complete stop before entering is completely inappropriate and dangerous. Roundabouts are not places for passive driving.

That’s very different to how we drive roundabouts in the UK. You don’t assertively enter the roundabout and must wait for a safe gap. British drivers don’t use their horns a lot but you will get a long angry beep if you pull onto a roundabout in front of somebody. Those already on the roundabout have no expectation that they will have to yield to traffic entering.

You need to slow right down as you approach the roundabout and the majority of the time in urban settings you will have to stop and wait.

Oh Carol, I sympathize. We’ve experienced it, too. And nowadays it’s harder and harder to drive in town with special bus lanes, tram lanes, bike lanes and finally what feels like a skee-ball slot for the car.
No, nobody in the roundabout is supposed to yield to someone entering , but if they are driving a tank or a truck I’d certainly yield. LOL. Courtesy behind the wheel lives.

Same experience at CDG this spring. Very poorly designed airport for rental car return. We went round and round and finally down to a very small parking lot for rental car return. No place to park the car. Few employees. It was a nerve wracking way to end our trip.

Those already on the roundabout have no expectation that they will
have to yield to traffic entering.

Nor here. But no one is going to give you an invitation either. You move in as soon as there is a gap and get right up to speed to match the traffic in the rotary. If you come to a complete stop, you are less likely to be able to do this.

Just back from two weeks in France. We spent 6 days in Paris w/o a car, then rented cars for time in Normandy and Burgundy. Some random notes:

1. The most important reason to get the IDP is in case you get in an accident, get pulled over for speeding, or have some other interaction with the gendarmes. Many (most?) car rental companies don't ask for it (mine didn't) because they care about renting cars, not about such other issues. I'm in the U.S., it cost me $20 and a 10-minute visit to the local AAA office to get the permit. Cheap insurance for worst-case scenarios.

2. When reserving a rental car--which should always be done in advance--do your research and make sure you get one with modern GPS/nav technology. I rented a car near Gare Montparnasse in Paris and was very concerned about simply getting out of town to drive to Bayeux. My car had very good GPR guidance--it even told me which lane to get into well in advance of turns, shifts, exits, etc.--I took it nice and slow and had no problem.

3. I learned to drive a stick many years ago, and can still do it when necessary. But unless that's the way you drive all the time, day-in and day-out, this is not the time or place for it. Any money you save from the rental company is false economy on steroids.

4. The main motorways in France are easily as good as, and in many respects better than, anything I've encountered in the U.S. Well-engineered, well marked/signed, regular adjustments to the speed limit to match safety concerns. Most important of all, to me, were the rest-stops/oases. They are amazingly plentiful, and the vast majority have gas stations, restos, food/drink stores, etc. Better than the oases on the Ohio/Pennsylvania turnpikes, not to mention the rest stops on most of the Interstate system, which occur at 30-mile intervals at best, and offer only restrooms and vending machines. Frankly, I'm happy to pay a few Euros to make my drive so safe and comfortable.

One suggestion is that if you are going to be returning the rental car at (or near) the same location that you rent it, take some extra time at the rental counter and try and get a precise map of where you will be returning the car. If they do not have such a map, ask them to draw one showing the streets in the area and how you are to proceed (taking into account that some of the streets may be one-way). relying on GPS does not always work for finding the rental return.

relying on GPS does not always work for finding the rental return.

GPS sometimes fails for US airport returns, too.

Note to Blattner et. al.:
Do you get the CDW (complete damage waiver) in France? Next spring will be my first rental in France. I've rented plenty of times in Italy and only get it when in cities, always avoiding driving in major urban areas. We plan on driving in Provence and Dordogne regions.

Nor here. But no one is going to give you an invitation either. You move in as soon as there is a gap and get right up to speed to match the traffic in the rotary. If you come to a complete stop, you are less likely to be able to do this.

How did you get on with this technique when you were driving in Europe? Must have been some hairy moments driving like that.

Now look for the notice of a driving violation MONTHS after your return that is hard to pay, hard to understand where the violation actually occurred and aggravating. But France was lovely otherwise.

How did you get on with this technique when you were driving in
Europe? Must have been some hairy moments driving like that.

I got along just fine thanks. No "hairy moments" at all. Of course it's a stereotype, but I find the European drivers much more civil, and less easily angered than those in The States. They also are much less apt to be asleep at the switch watching their cell phones instead of watching the lights and traffic. But I will add that most of my driving has been in Northern Europe—none down South. YMMV.

I got along just fine thanks. No "hairy moments" at all.

Good. I'd recommend watching some Youtube videos on how to use roundabouts before driving in the UK, if you ever have the need. You're probably not going to make many friends, or get yourself into an accident trying that here.

Thanks. I've driven through many roundabouts in the UK without issue. I love them.

Sorry this is still off topic for France. My experience of driving in France is fairly limited, probably 100km or so off the ferry from Dover, albeit towing a trailer to drag a battered old Citroen Acadiane back to London.

Phil, I found this video where I've linked to the timestamp covering what we're talking about. Maybe this is the approach you're taking, just expressing it in a different way.

https://youtu.be/koK_a4KYs-E?si=R3NARLcmvnTD9UCp&t=160

In response to earlier question re taking the rental car companies' insurance: I don't take it because I have an American Express card that provides better coverage (and if I take the rental company's coverage that automatically waives AmEx). Best bet: call your auto insurance provider and ask them what approach will best fit with your current coverage.