"Can you drive?" a friend asked me yesterday. "Of course I can, I'm American," I replied. Although I couldn't resist adding smugly that unlike most Americans, I can handle a standard shift transmission with my eyes closed. Although not literally, as this is a dubious driving technique. Which many Parisians, in fact, recommend. "The key to successful driving in Paris," they explain to me in tones reserved for revealing the greatest secrets of the universe, "is NOT to pay attention to what other people are doing and just continue on your way. If you have to turn, turn. If you have to merge, merge. You can't look at the other cars, otherwise you'll be paralyzed and unable to go anywhere."
Right. This gives you some insight into the safe, sane and legal traffic maneuvers regularly practiced in the City of Light.
Another highly strange traffic law in this country is that merging traffic has the right of way. This is called Priorité de droite. If you're already on the highway, up to YOU to make room for traffic coming off the on ramp onto the road; they have the right of way, not you.
Despite the obligation of allowing merging traffic to cut ahead of me for no real logical reason, I love nothing more than headin' out on the highway, lookin' for adventure.
Or not.
Although this isn't an area that I've researched much yet (que les recherches commencent!), I'm sure getting a French driver's license is annoying, lengthy, expensive and Kafka-esque in its bureaucratic complexities-- or caprices. I've already heard wildly different testimonies about the ease/difficulty of getting a French DL if you're a foreigner with a valid license from your country. I've gotten advice ranging from "go to the prefecture to request a "validation" and then wait a year" to "I drive on an expired American license and have never had a problem" to "go to Ireland and that the test there; it's much cheaper." And cost estimates for lessons and the exam fees in France for folks who already have a foreign license have ranged from 100-200 euros to 850 euros... Still less than the expected 1 or 2 grand that French kids are expected to pay, however.
This seems about right, the lack of helpful standard information. This is France, after all, where the policy du jour depends on which civil servant happens to be in the office that day. I once had my ATM card stolen and had to make cash withdraws at the bank in person for about a month. For the 3 withdraws I made, EACH one involved a different process. Because each time, someone different helped me.
If this is what the bank does, imagine what happens when the national legal system is involved. Especially considering a driver's license in France is valid for LIFE. While you may think that police involvement would suggest an actual easy transparent process that would be the same for everyone, think again. It probably makes it all the more complicated and secretive and will require even MORE of the usual French scavenger hunt (go where for clue #4?) to find all the relevant pieces of information needed to complete an administrative task... It's sure to be a long and winding road without clearly marked exits. And YOU, as a driver on this road, don't even have the right of way.
