Route Barrée warning

[Canalsman]

All who visit France will be familiar with the dreaded yellow Route Barrée sign!

I encountered one yesterday where a road near Gruissan was closed due to flooding.

A large detour would have been required so after ascertaining the water had receded such that the water was only about two inches deep I decided to proceed.

All was well till round the corner I, and others, were stopped by the gendarmerie!

The local drivers were being fined. The gendarme who approached me merely checked my driving licence.

Perhaps it's too complicated to fine a foreign driver...

 

[TeamRienza]

The upside to french roadworks I find, is that diversions are usually well signposted throughout the whole of the diversion. Helpful since satnavs often cannot compute the amended route.

At home I find that having diverted you, often little or no alternative route is signed.

Anyway, sounds like you were fortunate, it is akin to the gendarme loitering near stop signs.

Davy

 

[barryd]

The dreaded Route Barree was a thing of the past last year. Never came across one as I used Google Maps as the sat nav. Presumably up to date enough to work around them.

 

[trevskoda]

The dreaded Route Barree was a thing of the past last year. Never came across one as I used Google Maps as the sat nav. Presumably up to date enough to work around them.

And there are listening to you mucky conversations.

 

[Jo001]

We've several times found the gendarmes to be incredibly helpful when they are at route barrée points. They've given us very clear directions to find alternative routes. In contrast, in Spain, at roundabouts and junctions, we ended up looking for where lorries were coming from because we reckoned there was a good chance they were being diverted from the other end of the blocked roads. The logic made sense to me anyway.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

We drove into a forest last year in France, and there were 6 of them (Gendarmes) in camo gear, supposedly looking for migrants. They saw us and came over, clocked the UK reg, and spoke in decent English. I said to one, "It's not working, "??????" I said I can still see you, he translated to the others, and they fell about.

 

[alcam]

The upside to french roadworks I find, is that diversions are usually well signposted throughout the whole of the diversion. Helpful since satnavs often cannot compute the amended route.

At home I find that having diverted you, often little or no alternative route is signed.

Anyway, sounds like you were fortunate, it is akin to the gendarme loitering near stop signs.

Davy

You really surprise me . In my experience the very opposite applies in France .
Think for road signs in general we are over informed in the UK . EU only necessary signs shown

 

[barryd]

Always had good experiences with the French rozzers. You sometimes get stopped on the bike. Usually they can't be arsed once they find out you are British but always pleasant. We got stopped and told off for not wearing gloves last year. I say told off. They were quite charming about it.

 

[Jo001]

One of the best experiences of police relations we had was at Noirmoutier.

The aire, which had previously been huge and casual, had been taken over by Camping Car Parks. We arrived and there were no places, but about 60 vans (including us) stopped over in the old aire adjacent. Next morning, a gendarme knocked on the door. Her first question was whether we'd rather speak English or French (my French is okay, I don't know if that helped).

She said we shouldn't have stayed overnight, but no problem. There would be no penalty or fine. We should spend the day, enjoy the town and the facilities. But, don't stay a second night please.

Refreshing, or what?

 

[Wooie1958]

Reminds me of our first ever trip to France in our motorhome many many many many years back

Came out of the port on the N216 then joined the A16 westwards towards Boulonge-sur-Mer for our first nights stop at Le Portel ready for the street market the following morning

This is great we both said, plenty of traffic but free flowing which eased a lot after passing the Le Shuttle area.

Sat Nav warned us that we were approaching our exit junction then to our utter shock the junction was closed and " Route Barrée " was displayed.

Bullocks or something similar was my choice of words but no fear Sat Nav will re-route which it did quickly and directed us off at the next junction and then immediately back onto the A16 eastbound so back the way we came and tried to exit us at the same junction which was also closed

Being a seasoned HGV driver automatically kicked in and we came off at the next junction whilst i checked the map for a alternative route.

We did get there and had a great first night then enjoyed the market the following morning.

We continued to use the Sat Nav for the rest of our many years touring France which worked brilliantly with only a couple of minor hiccups but i put that down to the French being foreigners and not really knowing the proper way to do things.