Another zeal of Zebras...

I did a post way back in 2011 about our local villages' apparent penchant for zebra crossings and was reminded of it on my way from Ligueil to Descartes (and back...for another post). This journey takes you through the village of Cussay on the D31.On the way through (first time) I noticed that this village actually tells you how many they have.(they actually have at least 10) these 8 are on the main street.

                       


On my second 'passing through' I decided to clock the distance from entering to leaving the village, It was 0.3km, so that means that the crossings are one every 40 mtrs or so.Now I would have to say that. like most villages here, I have never ever seen anyone on any of these 8 crossings anytime I have driven through this village.

As touched on by Colin & Elizabeth on my last post on the subject,.the French Code de la Route (the Highway Code) exists to protects pedestrians. The law passed in November 2010 states that any driver has to give right of way, if necessary by stopping, to pedestrians engaged in the crossing of a road or clearly showing the intention to do so. Drivers can be fined €135 and lose 4 points on their license if caught.

However, the rule does not apply less than 50 metres away from the pedestrian crossing.

Now I wonder if the mayors of villages are so zealous re their crossings to protect drivers as they won't have to stop for random pedestrians given the frequency of the crossings, can't think of any other reason,unless they have loads of surplus paint and manpower!

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Zeal of Zebras...

Recently I have noticed that France seems to have a fresh zeal for pedestrian crossings in their towns and villages.As I drove through the villages along the D50 on my return from Tours recently I could not help but be drawn to the fact that the number of crossings seemed inappropriate to the potential demand for them. I saw no-one using any of them, indeed I only saw one person crossing the road between Tours and Ligueil and he did not use the nearby crossing.  The ones in Liguueil were the only ones I saw used. I shouldn't have been surprised as we all know its rare to see anyone on the streets in many of the villages anyway. Almost all our guests at our houses ask us "Where are all the people?" we explain it away with by fact that most of these rural villages have an elderly population who tend to stay indoors for most of the time. Either that or the Martians have 'beamed' them all up!

Sadly my thinking along these lines (black and white) got me noticing them more and more - did you know for example that between the town centre and out of town shopping at Yzeures-sur-Creuse here in the Loire Valley there are 9, yes 9, crossings - on a one kilometre stretch of road - why?

Footnote:

Here is a photograph from wikipedia of probably the most famous zebra crossing in the world - I, like many others  have taken time out during a London visit to walk across it.