Priority to the right

I’ve always enjoyed driving, and driving in France is no different. Actually, it is probably more enjoyable.

Generally the roads all over France have far less traffic than in the UK, so the driving experience is much less stressful. However, I have always been a little unsure about a certain french driving rule, which I’d always heard about, but never quite understood. As we are now living here, it seemed more important to research it, and I can honestly say it really is worth trying to understand, as ignoring it could get you in a spot of bother. It does seem quite an odd rule when you first experience it though, so we thought we would share our understanding of it, and a local example, so you can see how it works in practice.

The rule is called ‘priorité à droite’, or priority to the right - and it’s exactly that. I was never quite sure if it was a myth or not, but it isn’t, it’s part of the french Highway Code.

It works like this; roads entering the road you are on from the right either do, or don’t, have priority over you. If they do, you may be presented with a red triangle with a black ‘X’ in it as a warning. However, these roads do not always have a warning sign before them, so roads entering from the right may have priority anyway. If the road to the right has a ‘stop’ or ‘give way’ sign then they do not have priority, but you may not see that immediately indicated by their road markings (or at all). One of the difficulties of this rule is that local drivers will sometimes just pull out without looking, anticipating your slowing down, but as some of the roads included in this rule have an 80 kph speed limit it can get a little hairy. Failing to give way will render you responsible if there is an accident, it will certainly provoke car horns, waiving of arms and angry words at least.

For me, it seems strange when you are travelling along a straight main road, possibly at speed, with little knowledge perhaps of the area and you suddenly find you have to give way to a minor road from the right. And often the road could have a building, a hedge, or a tree or something obscuring it from view until the last second. I would also say be careful if you are the one entering from the right, as they don’t always honour the rule. As I said, a bit of a tricky one for those not used to it, however there are times that it can work really well, such as at a busy crossroads in town, where you will find the traffic keeps moving - organised chaos.

There are four types of roads in France: autoroutes, routes nationales, routes departmentales and routes communales. This rule only applies to routes departmentales and routes communales, the smaller of the road types. However it does apply to all roads that fall into those categories, whether they are in rural France, in villages, or in towns or cities.

So, just something to beware of when driving in France.