Travel Reference
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vious. The latter is quite unnecessary as far as I'm concerned as 'P' is an entirely sufficient
'coverall'. It describes everything available perfectly, with the exception of the picnic area
pictogram, which probably does need a table.
Although we're old hands at this game, setting off from the Eurotunnel complex in
Calais can still be challenging. This is because one is immediately faced with a plethora of
traffic signs and route choices. Then there is SatNav lady to contend with who is usually
irritated that, for no logical reason, her GPS co-ordinates of an hour ago have suddenly
shifted 50 kilometres to the south. She now adds to the general buzz by telling us we should
make multiple U-turns, ' when possible '.
Then there are the colourful driving habits to cope with. Obviously one should always
remember to drive on the right, but we also assume that anyone else sporting a GB sticker
will not. Equally, we assume that they will probably execute panic swerves at key junc-
tions, when they get to the bottom word on the road sign and suddenly realise that it was
indicating the exit they wanted.
The speed at which British drivers exit the congested EuroTunnel complex is another
feature that never ceases to amaze me. It's almost like a Grand Prix start. And yet it's also
quite common to overtake those same cars just a little further down the autoroute, when
conditions are calmer and they could safely be travelling a lot faster.
Just after the Eurotunnel exit, the gantries are arrayed with more road signs than even
the best of multitaskers can comfortably absorb. Region names, towns, villages and the
name of a city in a different country altogether: Bruxelles . Signs with road numbers too,
some of which do not seem to appear on any map. Added to all of these are the useful titbits
of advice regarding the length of time it will take to get to the next town, or whether there
are any road works ahead.
A further twist to this early encounter with the French road network is the fact that
main roads can have two entirely different numbers, one of which begins with an E. After
becoming intrigued by this, I checked it out and found that it's a specific numbering sys-
tem for roads in Europe (many of which cross national borders). It was developed by the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on a light agenda day. The network is
numbered from E1 upwards and is standardised so that all the roads running broadly east
to west are given even numbers, while the roads broadly north to south have odd numbers.
So, in the event that you are hopelessly lost, you know whether you're travelling on a 'lat-
itude' road or a 'longitude' road - how helpful!
In most European countries, roads carry the 'E' route designation as well as their na-
tional road number. Even though the system does exist in Britain, it seems that the road
signage legislators apparently couldn't bear the thought of it, so there are very few practical
examples. Therefore, for some of us Brits, these numbers are not only unfamiliar, but are at
complete odds with our ancient European road maps. Ours, for example, display all sorts of
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