UKC

Hi Chaps,

How long does it take to drive to Chamonix from Calais?

and if anybody knows conditions at the moment, that would be handy as well!

Cheers all.

In reply to Davvers:

Are you prepared to smash the speed limit?

In reply to Davvers: bloody ages in a micra!

In reply to Simon22: Man, I hope there are good condition next weekend, you still up for it?

In reply to Davvers: Typically took us about 9-10 hours.

In reply to Simon22: I think the record is around 4 hours. Done in an M5

In reply to MattG:

Yes mate, I am raring to go.

In reply to Davvers:

7.5 hours in a Clio diesel with so much stuff in it I could only use the driverside wing mirror.

In reply to Davvers: yeah- bout 9-10 hours, or so in a focus, and about 7-8 in an A6.

In reply to Simon22:

Hehe, not sure about smash, I've heard the french cops are cracking down on speeding, so maybe a little over.

Based on what people have said I guess we'll be 8 to 10 hours if we do it (have yet to convince mate!)

Thanks all for your help ! Great snow, great ice and blues skies to you all !

In reply to Davvers:
7 hours in a mondeo with a slight pushing of the speed limit.

In reply to Simon22:

Simon, Matt,

are you guys going for a weekend or a week ? Just interested 'cos it's far for a weekend, but I'm going to try and make it a 4 day weekend. Just about justify it i think ?

In reply to Davvers:

We are off to Scotland. Driving from Yorkshire to Cham for a weekend would be insane!

I wouldn't consider driving all that way for less than a week out there.

In reply to Davvers:

http://mappy.fr/

In reply to Davvers:

About 10 hours in a 1984 1100cc 4 speed Polo cruising at around 75mph to 80mph with minimal stops for fuel and toilets.

In reply to Simon22:

I don't think i've ever owned a car that could 'smash' the french speed limit - mine coped at 80mph but it didn't like to much above it.

In reply to Davvers:
Take care with the stretch from Calais to Reims in particular - crawling with speed cops, especially on the way back when they always pull in loads of Brits at the last payage rushing to get the ferry. Also watch for the speed camera on the downhill stretch about 15km (?) after leaving Chamonix - to be fair they do signpost speed cameras, and they don't (seem to) lie!

In reply to chris bedford:

Why not just show some respect for the country you are visiting and keep within the speed limit? After all it seems that Brits tend to get all worked up when it is claimed that 'Eastern Europeans' ignore motoring laws when in Britain!

On the positive side anyone speeding may well fail to spot a French police speed check until it is too late as the police in France don't tend to stand practically in the middle of the road in bright yellow jacket as they do in the UK. (And most of their enforcement is done using mobile officers rather than easily-evaded fixed cameras).

Unfortunately in my experience Brits in France have even less respect for traffic laws than they do when home in the UK. I live in the French Alps and a favourite moan of the local ex-pats is how the French crack down on speeding and drink driving (something which has resulted in a 40% + cut in French road deaths in just 4 years) makes it risky for them to indulge in their favourite hobbies of speeding and drink driving!

When I moved across here I brought over UK-registered car then ensured it could be legally driven in France beyond the usual 3 months allowed as a visitor using a UK insurer. This required getting a homologation certificate from the manufacturer, new headlights, a Controle Technique (the French 'MOT') certificate, re-registration and then French insurance. So far I am the ONLY Brit I have come across who has done this, with everyone else I have come across who has taken a UK registered car to France, or who leaves one in France for when they visit their chalets, driving their vehicles illegally. Thus one sees Brit cars which have clearly not been to the UK for a long time (British registered cars with VED discs 6 months to 2 years out of date are commonplace) and yet have no French CT or insurance vignette in their windscreens. Perhaps some insure their cars via a UK insurer and in the event of a crash would claim they are just visitors or use a specialist insurer, but I doubt that such insurance would be valid given the lack of a MOT and so on, especially if it was shown the driver was normally resident in France.

One reason I have been given by a Brit ex-pat for not getting French plates is that the French police are less likely to pull drivers who may well be on holiday. This may well be true as I was told by the local mayor that the police in this area have been told not to be too heavy handed with foreign-registered drivers seen breaking the law in case it affects the tourist trade!

In reply to Davvers:

Got caught a few weeks back doin in excess of 200kph, dreading the postman each morning!

In reply to VirtualPowerPete:


If you got caught by a camera you are safe as there is no agreement between the two nations to prosecute drivers caught on cameras when they are abroad.

In reply to Davvers:

Depends on:

a) how fast you are prepared to drive.
b) how busy the roads are, especially at each end of the journey.
c) number of drivers, requirement to stop.
d) the weather.

It is near enough 1000 km, if you stick to the limit and only stop to fill up the roads are fairly clear and weather OK, 8 hours would seem reasonable. If you are prepared to drive faster you might knock an hour off that, if you take breaks or are hit by poor weather of heavy traffic, it could be 10 to 12 hours.

In reply to Davvers:

The french are nice about fixed speed cameras..
When you see a warning sign, slow down, there WILL be a camera in the next few hundred metres...

Most mobile camera/radars are within a couple of miles of the next toll booth as that is where the filth will be waiting to show you a video of your indiscretion.

In reply to Davvers: this is a good european directions site
this is just calais to cham, not tuneel or ferry specific but you can set it for that if you want
you will notice it tells you where the speed cameras are
hth
http://www7.mappy.com/sidgJ3q41WRa13Mn21w/CFGT?anchor=0&option=0&cs...

Interesting that so many replies seem to focus on ways to flout the law in France regarding speed limits and get away with it. Just goes to prove how right I was when I wrote: "in my experience Brits in France have even less respect for traffic laws than they do when home in the UK."

No wonder I am coming to believe that the British are the most selfish, arrogant ar-ses in Europe. I can only hope that all those discussing ways to get away with breaking the law in France are hit by an uninsured migrant worker from Eastern Europe on the way home tonight! Poetic justice indeed!

In reply to The Last Man....:



I think you maybe lumping everyone together when not all people are the same.

In reply to Davvers: google maps reckons 7hrs 57mins

In reply to The Last Man....:

Indeed, in Cumbria the Police have had to "educate" Polish workers on the laws against drink-driving. Apparently no such laws exist in in Polksa.

Noticed that over the last few years Poles have upgraded from driving Polish registered bangers to British plated second-hand Audis and BMW's. Just wonder about their "knowledge" of insurance, MOT, tax etc.

Been going to France for over 30 yrs now and I can say the Brits (esp. Climbers & Football supporters have developed flouting the law in an art form. (I confess to it in my younger days).

Back to original post: Answer 10 hours driving.
Any willy waving & jousting along the lines of, "How long from ferry to Cham? We did in ...?" gets a stock response from me . . . "We enjoyed the trip down, thank you"
One hour here or there . .what the f...

In reply to The Last Man....:

If you think Brits drive badly you clearly don't know many French! Nor have lived here... French drivers are at present, by the force of the introduction of breath tests and radar traps, going through the same process as in many other countries... fatalities have come down from 3 times the British level to less than double and there has been a noticeable change in driving habits here in France (for me too as you soon pick up local habits) over the last through years, helped by the quite recent gradual introduction of tests a bit like MOT tests, but still less strict and a points system on driving licenses.

Like anywhere there are good and bad drivers but to pretend that British drivers are, on average, worse than French is just another bit of puritanical self-flagellation! ... now that really is something that's "typically British", of a certain type of Brit though

___________

Back on subject, I'd say 10 hours is a good fast average, although it can be done quicker but not easily if you respect the speed limits and the radar traps. I think the record Paris to Cham must be about three hours by some French nutter a few years back, and racing from Paris to Nice was a favorite for young French doctors with Porsche's years ago, but one hears less of such antics these days!

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Aye Bruce 10 hrs does it.
A Porsche! Just the car for packing two sets of winter climbing kit, skis etc.
Italian driving gets me. One Summer on the Autostrada from Parma to Bolonga. Instant hail storm descends. Italians not wishing to blemish their paint job, pull up under the shelter of the next bridge on the hard shoulder. Next bridge hard shoulder & inside lane parked full of sheltering Alfa's. Next bridge hard shoulder & ....until 4th bridge ... complete stand-still.
I don't think this practice is in the Italian version of the Highway Code.

In reply to parafinn:

wonder if they are the same cars as in 1978 when we had the same sort of thing. The motorway was that flooded for 40 miles we ended up with virtually no clutch for the journey back to England due to the water removing the grease from the bearing on the clutch release arm. Really bad journey. Sierre Chevalier was in thick fog when we arrived there that night after all the floods.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

I understand that you live in the Paris area where perhaps things are a little different, but in my experience the 'average' British driver is worse than the average French driver on a number of accounts. Number one I have done a lot of cycling in both Britain and France and French drivers show vastly more care and consideration when around cyclists. When I was last in the UK it seemed that every other driver was using a mobile phone and whilst you do see people on a mobile whilst driving here you do so much less often. I have found that there is much less of the aggressive 'dodging and weaving' which is such a feature of driving on UK roads with motorists using filter lanes even when they are going straight on and the jumping the lights to get ahead as the 'Traffic light GP' sets off and so on. People here actually seem to stop at red lights! In the UK these days it seems a light is not held to actually be red until 3 or 4 cars have driven though it! The official figures I have read for the number of drivers involved in crash who are over the legal blood alcohol limit clearly indicate that drink driving is now significantly less widespread in France than in the UK. (Ten years ago they were about equal). In fact the UK is the only country in Europe other than Spain to have seen a rise in drink-drive related fatalities in the last 10 years!

The level of 'hit and run' offences in France is also a fraction of the UK's. In France around 3% of crashes are 'hit and runs'. In the UK it is now about 18% and in some areas the figure is over 50% of all crashes resulting in death or serious injury! This is one reason why I am so concerned about all the Brits over here who are on the road illegally as I just can't help wondering whether if one of them ran me down or one of my family they wouldn't be tempted to maintain what is becoming a great British tradition and drive off so as to avoid prosecution.

As to the relative casualty figures. Although the figures for UK vehicle occupant deaths have been much lower than those for France for a long time the gap is now much closer with 4,500 in France as opposed to 3,200 for the UK. Also the figure for UK vehicle occupant injuries is actually higher than that for France, as are the death and injury rates for vulnerable road users, especially children. The 'low' UK vehicle occupant casualty figures is overwhelmingly a reflection of the high level on congestion on UK roads which has a natural traffic calming effect, not better driving standards! (The paper "Death and injury from motor vehicle crashes: a public health failure, not an achievement" published in the journal Injury Prevention in 2001 gives a good over-view of this effect). In comparison France is a large country with a much lower traffic density, something which encourages higher speed driving and so more fatal crashes. There are also more cars on the road in France than the UK. The UK's vulnerable road users casualty figures are amongst the worst in Europe and the only reason they aren't even worse is that so few cycle or allow their kids to cycle or walk to school anymore because of the danger posed by 'the traffic'!

Another thing I like about France is that most drivers here seem to have accepted the new robust approach to dealing with driving crimes. If a similar thing was tried in the UK the motor lobby, the right-wing press and so on would be up in arms claiming that there was a 'war on the motorist'. It's no wonder Britain hasn't been able to introduce random breath testing and still has an 80 mg/100 ml drink drive limit!

I would admit one point. I feel that the sort of ex-pat British motorists I have come across, moaning about drink-drive testing, scheming how to avoid having to take out a French licence and so serve a ban when caught going way over the speed limit, driving UK registered cars without insurance and all the rest might well represent 'biased sample' of 'The Great British Motorist'. Most Brits I have come across (and I do try to avoid them!) are the sort of 'done well for themselves', selfish, arrogant 'Daily Mail Reader' types who back in the UK would be getting all indignant about being caught speeding and ranting on about the supposed 'persecution of the beleaguered motorist'!

In reply to The Last Man....:

I think we have had this discussion before!

I just can't agree about what you say concerning driving habits though - I've been driving in both countries for over 30 years and when I come back to England I really have to make an effort to break out of my French driving habits and adopt the law-abiding courteous ways which are the norm in the UK. I don't think you are being objective about this.


Like the drunk in Brittany who killed half a dozen cyclists in one crunch a year or so ago, or the young nutters who race each other on urban motorways in old BMWs and wiped out a whole family recently too? The family car was destroyed in flames, 4 dead, and when condemned to a shortish (4 years I think) jail sentence there were people on the radio moaning about the "severity" of the sentence!

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

First of all. I'd allow a minimum of 8 hours from Calais to Chamonix.

Secondly, my experience of driving in France, Spain and Italy indicates driving on the continent is much better, more predictable and courteous than Britain. That experience included driving from Calais to Naples (via Chamonix ) around Rome and back last summer!

In reply to JimR:

Well if that was your experience then that's it, maybe you live in a particularly bad area of Britain. I've been driving since 1966, and in France on a daily basis, for years to and from work in Paris, plus 500kms a week for work in Paris area for quite a few years and I haven't been so fortunate... maybe I attract road hogs, like the one who deliberately rammed me because I stopped at a pedestrian crossing - he actually backed of then rammed me! Not to mention hundreds of scrapes with all sorts, from trucks to buses.

As a pedestrian, be careful at crossings, drivers rarely stop. I make a point of doing so and people often wave me on as they think it's a trick

Once you get used to it it's ok, you just have to give as much as you get and wave them past if you want to keep your licence... but all that's subjective, you only have to take a look at accident figures to see which countries have the most dangerous drivers. The only objective figures are on deaths as the stats are normalized, most of the other figures are not easily compared as different countries have different ways of recording things. All on internet somewhere for those really interested.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


In my experience (3 years in France split between the Alsace and Haute Savoie) the observation of pedestrian crossings by French drivers is excellent, much better than in the UK.


Following the same logic one could well argue that as fewer pedestrians are killed walking down busy 'A' roads than along the footway in city streets 'A' roads must be safer for pedestrians than footways! Casualty figures mean little unless other factors are considered, such as exposure rates. As I said above the UK's 'low' vehicle occupant fatality rate more than anything reflects the UK's traffic density and high level of congestion, as these act as natural 'traffic-calming' devices. Also, the fatality rates for vulnerable road users in the UK are amongst the highest in Europe, especially for children, and this is despite the UK having amongst the lowest levels of cycling and the lowest level of independent child mobility in Europe.

In reply to The Last Man....: As you said, you've lived in Alsace & Ht Savoie, Paris (& the Ile de France) is very different -(I lived in Lorraine for a while). Here you can't assume a driver will stop if you're on a pedestrian crossing, & when a car does give way it almost always has a non-local registration.

I don't drive much here, mostly just on holidays but my French partner always remarks that driving is much less stressful in the UK despite having to be on the 'wrong side' of the road.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Hmm maybe you're just a really crap driver!

I've driven over half a million miles in the last 20 years and only had 3 bumps.

In reply to The Last Man....:


You are clearly bonkers or blind! What happened to you in the uk to make you so bitter?

In France people just don't stop at crossings.

In reply to JimR:

I haven't had any "bumps" either, that's not what we are talking about. I don't have an axe to grind, French people have lots of qualities, but courteous or safe driving is most certainly not one of them!

If you want to knock the uk, then go ahead I don't have shares in the place either, but at least choose things which are true, like excessive masochism, a tendency to eating greasy food, a sheep like attitude in general, but one thing they are pretty much above the rest of the world on is politesse and civilized behaviour... ask any French person, it's one of their favorite stereotypes.

Of course there are always exceptions!