1. Check your car and stock it up prior to leaving
You ought to examine your car’s crucial functions prior to leaving, including its brakes, guiding wheel, headlights, wiper blades, battery, and tires.
You ought to likewise examine screenwash, coolant, oil and brake fluid levels.
Also make certain you have the fundamentals – such as your obligatory yellow vest, breathalyser, and alerting triangles, along with equipment to alter a tire, an emergency treatment set, and a torch.
Read more: France driving: What must residents and visitors carry in their cars?
2. Check your route
Before departing, you should check the weather forecast – both for your destination and your route, if driving a particularly long way.
You should also check the general traffic predictions on Bison Futé, and where possible, utilize an app to examine live traffic levels on your prepared path.
If possible, have a backup path in mind.
For example, Coopits is a federal government application supplying real-time traffic updates from roadway network supervisors, available on Android phones (it is presently available as a test beta on iPhone, prepared for a complete release quickly).
If utilizing an electrical car, examine your path for charging points – although these are now discovered at the majority of filling station. However, they are not constantly available to all electrical car users.
You can likewise examine your path to see if you require to pay any tolls, so you are not captured brief. Most tolls can now be paid with cards, or utilizing apps, nevertheless.
Do not set yourself a rigorous arrival time as roadway conditions might alter the length of your journey substantially.
Read likewise: Highest-level caution for traffic on French roadways this weekend
3. Pack your car properly
If taking great deals of travel luggage, make certain you load your car properly, both to increase possible space and reduce the threat of mishaps.
The heaviest bags ought to be put at the bottom of your car’s boot, with gradually lighter bags on top.
No heavy bags ought to be placed on your boot’s ‘shelf’, as abrupt breaking might trigger products here to strike travelers in the rear seat at high speeds – limitation it to clothes, and so on.
Make sure fundamentals (food, water, nappies and home entertainment for kids) are within simple reach, without always requiring to stop the car.
If driving with kids, make certain they have actually something prepared to do (a video game, book, CD to listen to, and so on).
If utilizing a roofing rack or other tool to bring equipment on your roofing system, make certain you have the producer’s particular directions at hand and do not surpass weight/size limitations.
4. Be in the best condition to drive
Make sure you are well-rested prior to driving, and attempt to trigger earlier in the early morning prior to doing a lot of things – attempt your finest not to do a long drive after a day’s work.
Do not take medication that might impact your driving capabilities or beverage prior to driving.
You ought to take a little break every 2 hours whilst driving, and keep hydrated with a soda at hand.
Read more: What should you do if your vehicle breaks down on a French motorway?
5. Adapt your driving conditions to your surroundings
If driving past a work site, you should slow down and if possible, change lanes to get further away from the workers – failing to do so could come with a €135 fine and losing points on your licence.
When entering a tunnel, read the information on the live update sign board – on top of this piece of advice, the Ministry of Transport has released a number of short videos about driving securely through tunnels.
If you are bringing your animal with you, you ought to likewise make certain they have food and water and are comfy in the car. Cats ought to be kept in a travel cage whilst in the car.
Our short article listed below likewise describes what you ought to do if you see an animal in distress when driving.
Read more: How to raise alarm if you see a family pet in distress on your French journeys
6. Consider stopping briefly at a ‘stopover village’
Stopover towns (Villages Étapes) are little places (less than 5,000 residents) situated less than 5 minutes from a significant roadway in France.
These government-approved towns have many parking for drivers to take breaks when on a long journey, and offer an option to filling station on freeways.
They likewise have a variety of stores, dining establishments and regional services, enabling you to purchase regional items on your journey.
There are presently 76 of them in France, and you can find out more about them, along with find ones on your path, on the official website – a lot of them lie in Brittany and Normandy, popular vacation locations, particularly for Parisians.
Read likewise
Alcohol, drugs and innovation blamed as French freeway deaths increase
