Driving tips for Europe;

junkyard

Going on a driving holiday to the south of France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland soon, just looking for tips on driving, will have a LHD car so no problems there, basically I'm just wondering what to do and not to do from other peoples experiences who've been there, thanks in advance.

testicle

Switzerland requires you to have a Vignette to drive on their motorways. This is a non-transferrable sticker yopu attach to your windscreen.

Costs abour €30 at the border.

If you wea glasses, Spain requires you to have a spare pair in the car.

peasant

The Swiss don't take kindly to speeding and it is forbidden to have a SAT-NAV with camera locations on it.

Italian motorway police also keeps a keen eye on foreigners ...as they accompany you to the next hole in the wall to take out your speeding fine (not all of those fines end up in governement koffers ) Never, ever argue with a Carabinieri ...just smile and pay.

crosstownk

testicle wrote: »

Switzerland requires you to have a Vignette to drive on their motorways. This is a non-transferrable sticker you attach to your windscreen.

Ditto in Austria, if you decide to venture that far.....

cyclopath2001

Bulgarian cops pick on foreign drivers. Even if not speeding, might pull them over to check if there's a warning triangle in the boot.

spuddy

peasant wrote: »

Italian motorway police also keeps a keen eye on foreigners ...as they accompany you to the next hole in the wall to take out your speeding fine (not all of those fines end up in governement koffers ) Never, ever argue with a Carabinieri ...just smile and pay

Swiss police will do the same.
BTW: 30kms over the limit and they take your licence, no questions! :eek:

Best piece of advice I can give you is to know the "priorite a droit" rule.
When the priorite a droit applies you must give way to vehicles entering from the right, even though you may be driving on the main through road.
This is obviously counter intuitive for us, as we're used to priority being explicitly stated at junctions.

When you have priority it's denoted by a yellow diamond sign. If there is a black diagonal stripe through the sign is means 'give way to the right', or 'be on your toes'.

(Previously French roundabouts used right side priority, so that therefore cars entering the roundabout had priority over those already on it! Thankfully, this is no longer the case, thus you will always see a Yield sign approaching roundabouts there, however not all have been converted, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris being a case in point)