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Quote: Originally posted by valkrider on 24/8/2014

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I may be a bit thick but when I've been travelling on French motorways I use my indicators as though I'm in the UK.
When approaching a slower moving vehicle I will indicate left, pull out into the overtaking lane, move past the vehicle and then indicate right to move back to my original lane.
The French seem to indicate left, change lanes but keep the left indicator flashing, move back into the original lane with the left indicator still flashing.

Using the UK method I have had several trucks give me a blast on their horn as though I'm doing something wrong, and I do give them plenty of room.

So whats the correct method, anyone know ?

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As time goes on, I find that driving habits in France improve every year. I tow a trailer tent, usually around 70mph, which I find is a comfortable speed, however, it is faster than the trucks and caravans in the Right Hand Lane and slower than the cars in the left lane.

I rarely had an issue pulling out to overtake trucks and caravans, I don't think that I was flashed a single time by drivers behind.

I noticed that 90% of drivers indicate to pull out into the left lane AND indicate to pull back into the right hand lane.

Speeding in France seems to be largely a thing of the past, I rarely saw cars travelling above 85mph, even on autoroutes, strangely the fastest drivers were often Dutch or Germans. Speed restrictions on slower bits of autoroute or on RN where they pass through towns were pretty well adheared to

Interestingly, when I came back to England and drove from Newhaven to Salisbury, I was flashed at least 3 times and hooted once by cars on the A27 where I had the nerve to drive in the BMW lane while overtaking trucks, also a slow car accellerated hard as soon as they noticed that they were being overtaken by a car towing a trailer, only to slow down again as soon as I moved back in behind them (don't you really hate that!), this didn't happen at all in France. Also, my wife asked why I was driving so much faster in England than in France.... actually I was driving at 62mph at the time, whereas in france I was driving pretty consistently at 70mph, it is just that the UK roads are so bumpy with variable camber that it feels much faster.

OK, so France is not perfect, for example they are pretty clueless about round abouts, however, French road manners have really improved over the past few years, and I really didn't detect any anti Rosbif sentiment