This is our family car, a 2005 Peugeot SW 407.
This is some of the damage I've done to it since I started driving it!
Admittedly, I was deathly afraid of driving around here my entire first year in France. The narrow streets, the crazy round-abouts, the reckless drivers (especially those on motorcycles) had me paralyzed with fear. As a result, Andrew and I walked or took the bus everywhere we went and I actually enjoyed it. However, this year, the need for me to drive became essential. Many of our activities now involve places that are too far or too inconvenient to take the bus, and I was getting a littled tired of my dependency on Robert to come along on the weekly grocery shopping, etc. Upon arriving here and purchasing our vehicle, we learned that we had one year from the date of our visas, to obtain a French driver's license in order to maintain our auto insurance in France. At the time, I held an Ontario driver's license and Robert held a Florida driver's license. Fortunately, Florida is one of 7 states, and Ontario is one of 4 provinces, with which France has a reciprocity agreement, thus allowing us to "exchange" our driver's licenses, without having to go through the otherwise required 80 hours of driving lessons and passing the written and driving exams! After the expected long waits in the Driver's License bureau, commonly known as the dreaded Prefecture, we received our new licenses, and simultaneously had to give up our American/Canadian ones. Surprisingly, it did not take too long for me to establish my confidence on the roads around here, however, I continue to struggle on a daily basis with the parking situation. In most cases, finding a tight spot to squeeze into on a narrow side street is the only option. Where parking garages exist, the spaces are so tight that I cannot open the door on the passenger side wide enough to get Andrew out and therefore have to crawl over to the back seat, take him out of his carseat, and we both kinda shimmy out on the driver's side. If Robert is with us, we have the good fortune of being able to get out of the car before he pulls into the parking spot. Fat people would have no hope of getting out of a car in most parking garages in France! To make matters more difficult, the entrance and exits to these garages (including the entrance to my apartment building) is so narrow that there is no room for a car to enter at the same time as a car exiting. Therefore, one car must reverse back out to a point the other can get through, before moving forward. These parking lots would NEVER receive permits in North America to even exist, yet it is just a completely accepted situation over here, where the concept of personal space means sitting right on top of your neighbour. The scrapes and dents on the photo above all resulted from rather unsuccessful parking attempts into tight spaces! Although our family car is not one that you would consider "large" in the US/Canada, it feels like a bus when driving it here, and in hindsight, I probably would have opted for a car much smaller in size, like what all our friends have, though it would pose some difficulties anytime you want to go somewhere as a family. In any event, we are otherwise very happy with the car, and now I have it every day (and cannot imagine life without it!). Robert generally takes the bus to work (the bus stop is right outside of our apartment building and it is an 8 minute, 1 euro bus ride to his office) and I usually pick him up at the end of the day.
We both learned the hard way about speeding tickets in France, me first. I opened the mail just the other day to discover a speeding ticket, in Robert's name, for a time and date at which I was driving the car. Doh!...photo radar is everywhere and I did not know it. Although Robert seems to think I have a rather heavy foot, I believe I drive rather cautiously around here. Anyway, after several difficult phone calls, I learned what was required to modify the ticket such that I was the named offender (tickets are automatically issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, Robert in our case). After some not unexpected lecturing from Robert about slowing down on the roads, I got the ticket paid and vowed to drive under the limit going forward. Less than one week later, a ticket came, again in his name, but (thank GOD) for a time and date at which I did NOT have the car!!! Unlike in the US where you can go to some kind of school to save your points and stuff (fortunately I never had a speeding ticket in Florida), no such option exists in France. You pay the fine within 15 days, you lose points, end of story. The rather lame part is that both of our tickets involved speeding LESS than 10km/h over the limit (mine was 9km over and Robert's was 7km over the limit) both of which are LESS than 5 miles an hour over the limit...and no chance to dispute, no warnings, nothing but a ticket for 45 euros which would become 168 euros if not paid within 15 days (and at least one point loss from our driving record).
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