Whenever I’m out and about in my motorhome, I disable the motorway option on the sat-nav. After all, I want to see and experience the countryside. That’s how I’ve discovered some of the most beautiful spots in the world. But there’s a massive catch, as a recent trip to the south of France revealed. You can certainly no longer speak of a free-flowing journey: driving through most villages turns into a ‘four-hill ski jumping tour’, a game of ‘traffic light hopping’ and a ‘millimetre game’. Stops and slow-moving traffic characterise the driving experience!
In almost every backwater, there’s a bump after another
The first thing you notice are the stacked asphalt humps, which really do give you the feeling of being on a Four Hills Tournament. The journey isn’t made any faster, however – quite the opposite. The whole point of this traffic-calming measure is to bring road traffic to a sudden halt. Many of these humps are so high that you can only negotiate them without damage at 10, or at best 20 km/h. Anyone driving a lowered vehicle is likely to hear the scraping of their front, side and rear spoilers every single time. A clipped exhaust is then probably the ultimate auditory experience. Whereas these speed bumps were once only found at village entrances, they now accompany you through the entire municipal area in many places – sometimes at very short intervals and consistently within 30 km/h zones.
Isolated traffic lights
In many villages, one also comes across traffic lights that do not appear to be designed to allow either pedestrians or road users from side streets to access the main road. They seem to have been installed at random. Based on my observations, their primary purpose is presumably to bring vehicles that do not strictly adhere to the 30 km/h speed limit to a halt. In any case, they turn red for no apparent reason.
Artificial constrictions become a matter of millimetres
But that’s not all. As an added bonus, some extremely inventive ‘transport experts’ are treating the ‘homo mobilis’ to artificially created bottlenecks. Concrete planters, with or without flowers, raised paving and winding road markings narrow the carriageway in many places, forcing drivers to slow down and, when there is oncoming traffic, to come to a complete standstill. ‘Traffic experts’, mind you, who are far less imaginative when it comes to infrastructure projects designed to improve traffic flow!
CO2, noise and traffic jams guaranteed
For years, I have made it a habit to keep an eye on the on-board computer, which displays both the current and average fuel consumption. Whilst driving through French villages – and, of course, not just there – one quickly realises just how counterproductive these traffic-restriction measures are. When pulling away after one of the many enforced stops, fuel consumption shoots up to three to five times the figure it was showing whilst driving smoothly. As a result, the average consumption negates all efforts to drive economically and ecologically. The readings prove unequivocally that I drive far more efficiently on the motorway at a speed of 130 km/h.
Another aspect that has the opposite effect to what is intended concerns traffic noise. When a vehicle pulls away, the engine naturally revs up, thus causing more noise than when it is purring along at a steady pace. The fact that slowing down road traffic ultimately leads to a massive increase in traffic jams is worth mentioning here, if only in passing. These constant, time-consuming and nerve-wracking periods of standstill naturally make your hair stand on end, and anyone who has to go through life bald will stand out due to a ‘full-head blush’. I wish to highlight yet another factor contributing to damage to health. Yet, bearing in mind all the traffic-calming measures and, more generally, the attitude of certain circles towards mobility, one must, for better or worse, speak of a sick society anyway.
Measures on an epidemic scale
Anyone who wants to take the easy way out and simply point the finger at France is bound to be disappointed. Although the Romans would probably say, ‘Those Gauls are mad!’, these tendencies to obstruct traffic can also be observed in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and many other European countries. In Switzerland, simply because of the high population density, there isn’t the same frequency of speed bumps. Here, a misguided pedestrian regulation system, traffic lights, bus stops on the carriageway, concrete blocks in the lane and a road infrastructure that lags behind requirements ensure that the speedometer needle points to 0 km/h more often than one would like. And because the distance from one town to the next is so short, this alone results in an almost epidemic frequency.
The conclusion
So whilst the introduction and increase of existing transport charges are pressing ahead at full speed, mobility is being gradually curtailed. The consequences of this are highly damaging from an economic, environmental and social perspective. Once again, I came to the realisation that ideology and intelligence cancel each other out!
