
(Please note that this post reflects our experience in the early 1990’s – I can’t speak for what anyone would experience today.)
I knew how to drive a manual transmission when we moved to France, but wanted a car with an automatic, because Ste. Foy was quite hilly and I didn’t have a lot of confidence with my ability with a clutch on a hill. We looked high and low for a car with an automatic transmission and only found two and they were both out of our price range. We went to a couple of huge car dealers and when we asked about automatics, they laughed at us. I ended up with the car pictured above- it was a diesel with a manual transmission (and boy was the clutch stiff on that car! My left knee hurt for years after we left France.) I got a diesel because I didn’t want to have to mess with the manual choke that gasoline engines have there. This car was pretty nice by French standards, but it didn’t have automatic steering, automatic brakes, or air conditioning.
Getting a driver’s license in France is political (according to my old French teacher) and can be quite difficult to do, even for the French. Luckily, France and the state we moved from had a reciprocal agreement, so we were able to get ours with no trouble. A French driver’s license never expires, so I still have mine.
Every car in France is required to be insured and you have to display a little green card in your windshield to prove that your car is. Getting insurance proved to be much tougher than getting our licenses. When we told the insurance agent that we had been driving since we were 16 years old, he didn’t believe us. Carl’s mother had his first driver’s license and sent it to us to show to him.
Vance was four and a half when we moved to France and had been out of a car seat and sitting in the front seat for a while (remember this was the 1990s). You had to be 10 to sit in the front seat in France, so there was no more front seat for him.
Driving in France is much like driving in the US, although it seemed more aggressive to us. There are a lot of traffic circles (like around the Arc de Triomphe) and at first, it was difficult to remember that the cars coming into the circle have priority over those already in it.
Parking in France could be a challenge. The roads are narrow and the cities are old and there just aren’t that many parking spaces. Double parking was common. I tried not to do it, but sometimes I had to. I came out one time and the person I was blocking in was hollering at me. After he calmed down, he told me that when you double park, you’re expected to leave your car in neutral and leave the brake off, so your car can be pushed out of the way if necessary.
Parking meters were different in France. One meter would serve the whole street. After you parked, you bought a paper ticket from the meter (for however long you thought you needed) and placed it on your windshield. There was no way to luck out and come across a meter with some time left on it.
One of my biggest frustration with driving in France came from the fact that they would close off streets whenever there was a manifestation (or protest) and believe me, that happened quite often. Those caused some major traffic jams. Carl and Vance got stuck in a traffic jam like that one time, and in the midst of all his frustration, Carl heard, “Vive la France!” from the back seat.