Main speed limits on French roads, as displayed at the border, unless adverse weather(rain, etc.) or specific speed limit implies a different limit
French roads have a variable maximum speed limit that depends on weather conditions. In dry weather, roads in urban areas have a default speed limit of 50 km/h, and outside urban areas have the following limits:
On single-carriageway rural roads, a maximum speed limit of 90km/h applies for a direction of traffic if at least two lanes are provided, but must be explicitly signed as such. (For a 3-lane road, with a passing lane in one direction, this means the speed limit may be different for each direction of traffic.) Since December 2019, departments may signpost other single-carriageway roads under their control as 90km/h, but only after an accident study has been performed by the department's road safety commission.[2]
Urban authorities, after consultation, may also increase speed limits on certain urban roads from 50 to 70km/h, in cases where local or pedestrian access to the road is limited and suitably protected. The Code de la route also explicitly sets the 70km/h speed limit for Paris' Boulevard Périphérique under this regulation.
When raining, the default speed limit on dual carriageway roads is reduced to 100km/h, and on motorways 110km/h (or 100km/h if signposted for a lower dry-weather speed than the 130km/h default). Single carriageway roads are reduced to 80km/h — in practice, this now only applies for such roads that have since returned to 90km/h. Urban speed limits are unaffected by weather. The general speed limit is lowered to 50km/h on all roads in the fog or other low-visibility conditions if visibility is under 50 metres.
Those limits are not systematically signaled as they are the default limit. For instance the name of a town or village at its entry is an implicit limitation to 50km/h; the crossed name at the exit is the corresponding end of limit. This matches the way 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic defined a built-up area (in English, or agglomération in French). However, additional 50km/h speed limit signs, or other speed limit sign, might be added to make it more explicit.
Vehicles over 3.5 metric tons of maximum total weight have lower speed limits. Lorries of more than 12 metric tons (except dangerous goods and trailers that may have lower limits) may not exceed 50km/h in urban areas (even if the speed limit was raised to 70km/h), 90km/h on highways, and 80km/h elsewhere. Lorries under 12 metric tons but over 3.5 have the same limits except 90km/h on 4-lane expressways. Buses may not exceed 100km/h on highways and 4-lane expressways.
Minimum or recommended speeds are very rarely marked in France, though vehicles incapable of sustaining 60km/h are not allowed on highways/motorways and you must be driving at 80km/h or higher to use the left-most lane of a highway/motorway.
From 1 July 2018, 80km/h has become the default maximum speed limit on a network of around 400,000 kilometers of road. Protests against the lowering of the speed limit on rural roads to 80km/h were held due to the unpopularity of the decision, on the assumption that an 80km/h speed is too slow and that there has been insufficient assessment done. This contributed in French rural areas to the beginning of the "Gilets Jaunes" (Yellow vests movement).
Article R413-17 of the Code de la route confirms that speed limits are designed for optimal traffic conditions, clear weather and a vehicle in good condition. Drivers not adapting their speed to the conditions of the road and obstacles ahead (including a number of stated cases in the code) is an infringement in spite of the applicable speed limit.
History and trends
The urban speed limit was lowered from 60 to 50km/h (37 to 31mph) on 1 December 1990.[3]
In some cities, 30km/h is being developed as a common speed limit in zone 30 to provide greater security with pedestrian and cyclists.
In 2005, a governmental report advised lowering the higher highway speed to 115km/h in order to save fuel and reduce accident risks, but this proposal was badly received. Since 2002, the French government has installed a number of automatic radar guns on autoroutes, routes nationales, and other major thoroughfares. These are in addition to radar manned by the French National Police and the Gendarmerie. The French authorities have credited this increase in traffic enforcement with a 50% drop in road fatalities from 2002 to 2006 (except on Motorways, where the fatalities rose by 15% between 2002 and 2006).
Introduction of 80 km/h default speed limit
On 9 January 2018 the national government announced 80km/h (instead of 90) as a standard speed limit on secondary network, due to the many fatalities still happening on these roads. This was after experimentation which included a speed limit change from 90 to 80 between 2010-2015 and 2015-2017 which resulted in a reduction in road fatalities.[4] The 80km/h national limit entered into force on 1 July 2018.
The default speed limit changes still provided for single carriageway roads to remain 90km/h for a certain direction of traffic, if it was catered for by more than one lane (ie. a passing lane). Stretches of road signposted as 90km/h under this exemption must be notified by local authorities to the national road safety minister.
The ONISR (the French state's national road safety centre) released progressive reports into the effects of the reduction in the speed limit over time, resulting in a final report released in July 2020, covering the first 20 months of operation.[5][note 2] The study noted a 10% decrease in the number of fatalities on rural non-motorway roads compared to the five-year average prior to the law change, and fewer accidents resulting in fatalities. It also suggested a socio-economic benefit of €800 million per annum, as cost of longer travel times was outweighed by lower cost of accidents and lower fuel usage.
The ONISR study also attempted to gauge driver sentiment over the period; those somewhat or entirely opposed to the change still represented a small majority (52%) of those surveyed in June 2020, but had decreased from 70% in a survey taken before the change, with women more likely to be supportive of the change over time than men.[5]
The change saw protests involving increased vandalisation of speed cameras using paint or tape[6]; this accelerated after the yellow vests protests were formed by late 2018, with other road-related cost-of-living issues - such as fuel taxes and speeding fines - adding motivation for vandalisation. By January 2019, then-interior minister Christophe Castaner suggested that as much as 60% of speed cameras were disabled; the government later stated that the figure had increased to as much as 80% at one point.[7][8]
Re-introduction of department discretion on 90 km/h limits
In an interview with France Info in May 2019, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe stated a willingness to devolve decisions about rural road speed limits to the departments, if the "highest levels of road safety" were guaranteed in the process.[8]
After legislation passed in December 2019[2], departments were authorised to re-introduce the 90km/h speed limit to single carriageway roads not covered by the multiple-lane exemption. The law requires that the department's road safety commission must be consulted, including the undertaking of an accident study for the stretch of road involved, before signposting such a road with the higher limit.
By the end of 2021, thirty-nine departments (of the 96 in metropolitan France; approximately 40%) had chosen to re-introduce 90km/h speed limits on at least some roads that were affected by the previous reduction in the default speed limit.[9]
Devolving power on the 90km/h question only to the departments was criticised at the time by opposition parties such as The Republicans, who had requested this power also be extended to department-level prefects, so that speed limits could also be increased for single-carriageway national roads[10].
Paris will extend 30km/h limits to cover the entire city from 2021, except the ring road and pedestrianised areas.[11]
Notes
↑ Motorways may exceptionally be decreed that do not conform to normal standards due to topographical constraints, if they extend from a motorway that does comply with design standards. In this case, the speed limit normally applying to the road of that type applies.
↑ Although intended as a two-year study, the analysis chose to release data up to February 2020 only, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on movement and thus traffic volumes in the remainder of the study period.
↑ "80 km/h: Philippe prêt à laisser les départements assouplir la mesure"[80 km/h: Philippe ready to let departments relax the measure]. Le Parisien. 16 May 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2024. Auteur de cet amendement, le sénateur LR de la Haute-Saône Michel Raison dénonce dans un communiqué la «fausse ouverture» d'Edouard Philippe «qui omet sciemment de préciser que l'amendement proposé par les députés LREM exclut du dispositif les routes nationales».[Author of the amendment, LR senator for Haute-Saône Michel Raison, denounced in a press release the "false openness" of Edouard Phillipe, "who knowingly fails to specify that the amendment proposed by LREM deputies excludes national roads from the system".]
Sécurité Routière, Ministère de l'Écologie, de l'Énergie, du Développement durable et de la Mer, Délégation à la sécurité et à la circulation routières, RCS paris b 562 111 732, July 2009.
Decree n°73-1073 or the "Code de la route", 3 December 1973, Journal Officiel, page 12844.
Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed, expressed as kilometres per hour (km/h) or miles per hour (mph) or both. Speed limits are commonly set by the legislative bodies of national or provincial governments and enforced by national or regional police and judicial authorities. Speed limits may also be variable, or in some places nonexistent, such as on most of the Autobahnen in Germany.
Road traffic safety refers to the methods and measures used to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, vehicle passengers, and passengers of on-road public transport.
A dual carriageway (BrE) or a divided highway (AmE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are designed to higher standards with controlled access are generally classed as motorways, freeways, etc., rather than dual carriageways.
The road hierarchy categorizes roads according to their functions and capacities. While sources differ on the exact nomenclature, the basic hierarchy comprises freeways, arterials, collectors, and local roads. Generally, the functional hierarchy can more or less correspond to the hierarchy of roads by their owner or administrator.
A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway, expressway, and partial controlled-access highway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway, including limited or no access to adjacent property, some degree of separation of opposing traffic flow, use of grade separated interchanges to some extent, prohibition of slow modes of transport, such as bicycles, horse-drawn vehicles or ridden horses, or self-propelled agricultural machines; and very few or no intersecting cross-streets or level crossings. The degree of isolation from local traffic allowed varies between countries and regions. The precise definition of these terms varies by jurisdiction.
The autostrade are roads forming the Italian national system of motorways. The total length of the system is about 7,016 kilometres (4,360 mi), as of 30 July 2022. To these data are added 13 motorway spur routes, which extend for 355 kilometres (221 mi).
The Autobahn is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is Bundesautobahn, which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word Bundesautobahn is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'.
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms include throughway or thruway and parkway. Some of these may be limited-access highways, although this term can also refer to a class of highways with somewhat less isolation from other traffic.
The autoroute system in France consists largely of toll roads. It is a network of 11,882 km (7,383 mi) of motorways as of 2014. On road signs, autoroute destinations are shown in blue, while destinations reached through a combination of autoroutes are shown with an added autoroute logo. Toll autoroutes are signalled with the word péage.
Road speed limits in Ireland apply on all public roads in the state. These are signposted and legislated for in kilometres per hour. Speed limits are demarcated by regulatory road signs. These consist of white circular signs with a red outline. Speed limits are marked in black with "km/h" below the speed limit. Smaller "repeater" speed limit signs are used along stretches of road where there is no change in speed limit, in order to remind motorists currently on the road and to inform traffic merging from junctions that a certain speed limit applies.
A single carriageway or an undivided highway is a road with one, two or more lanes arranged within a one carriageway with no central reservation/median strip to separate opposing flows of traffic. A single-track road has a single lane with passing places for traffic in both directions. Road traffic safety is generally worse for high-speed single carriageways than for dual carriageways due to the lack of separation between traffic moving in opposing directions.
A speed limit is the limit of speed allowed by law for road vehicles, usually the maximum speed allowed. Occasionally, there is a minimum speed limit. Advisory speed limits also exist, which are recommended but not mandatory speeds. Speed limits are commonly set by the legislative bodies of national or local governments.
Road traffic collisions generally fall into one of five common types:
This article describes the highway systems available in selected countries.
Road speed limits in the United Kingdom are used to define the maximum legal speed for vehicles using public roads in the UK.
The default speed limits in the Netherlands are 50 km/h (31 mph) inside built-up areas, 80 km/h (50 mph) outside built-up areas, 100 km/h (62 mph) on expressways (autowegen), and, as of 16 March 2020, 100 km/h from 6:00 to 19:00 and 130 km/h from 19:00 to 6:00 on motorways (autosnelwegen).
General speed limits in New Zealand are set by the New Zealand government. The speed limit in each location is indicated on a nearby traffic sign or by the presence of street lighting. The limits have been posted in kilometres per hour (km/h) since 1974. Before then, when New Zealand used imperial units, maximum speeds were displayed in miles per hour (mph). Today, limits range from 10 km/h (6.2 mph) to 110 km/h (68 mph); in urban areas the default speed limit is 50 km/h (31 mph).
Road signs in Mauritius are standardised traffic signs used in Mauritius according to the Traffic Signs Regulations 1990. They are heavily modelled on road signs in the United Kingdom, since Mauritius is a former British colony and drives on the left.
Speed limits in the United States vary depending on jurisdiction. Rural freeway speed limits of 70 to 80 mph are common in the Western United States, while such highways are typically posted at 65 or 70 mph in the Eastern United States. States may also set separate speed limits for trucks and night travel along with minimum speed limits. The highest speed limit in the country is 85 mph (137 km/h), which is posted on a single stretch of tollway in exurban areas outside Austin, Texas. The lowest maximum speed limit in the country is 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) in American Samoa.
Road signs in Spain are regulated in the Instrucción de Carreteras Norma 8.1-IC as well as the Catálogo de señales verticales de circulación. They conform to the general pattern of those used in most other European countries. Spain is an original signatory to the 1968 Vienna Convention of Road Signs and Signals, having signed it on November 8, 1968, but has yet to fully ratify it.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
