French Road Trip Headlight Query

There should be a miniscule dot on them, you then place some 'beam benders' in accordance with the instructions near that....Clear lenses like the prius don't use those bits of tape that block the light, they need benders that point it in the right direction....

 

Sounds lovely! We're taking the tunnel next weekend and driving across to Brittany, staying near Vannes and the Quiberon peninsula for a week. Looking forward to seeing how the Prius behaves on a really long drive ( about 7 1/2 hours).

Anyway, for the last four years I haven't bothered with beam benders or cutouts as Honda recommended not using them with the xenons fitted on my previous car. I tried to be as courteous as possible towards other drivers by trying to minimise the amount of night driving and kept a pair of generic Halfords headlight converters in the glovebox for Les flics and experienced no problems. When I lived in France and ran a British registered car, I found the headlight converters an absolute pain as they don't so much convert as block half of the beam which made night driving an absolute pain...

Mind you, it is breaking the law as they are required as well as a fluorescent jacket, first aid kit, spare bulbs, warning triangle....

 

I must admit that I do the same. I ensure I have them on me, but more often then not I don't fit them. I just manually override the auto levellin and point them down a bit more. Last year I was towing a 2.5tonne boat across the alps to Italy an didn't use them either.

But carry them with you, the law says you have to use them but carrying them you should at least. Before you can put a foreign boat on lake Garda you have to get it tested and at the same time the Italian police checked my car and trailer, as did the Swiss border force. But neither made a comment on my headlights.

 

An interesting concept. Here in North America, cars can be driven on the road all bashed up, with headlights held on with duct tape, pointing at trees or the ground, and nobody does anything about it

 

I see France as a necessary evil to get to Italy or Spain ;-) but yes the south is very beautiful.

but yes they all like their rules, if you think cars are bad, you should see the list for boats and then I haven't even started on the rules for inland waterways versus the sea. The Romans were bureacrats and it is still present.

 

g.c., what is all this headlite stuff? can you explain in more detail? just curious, thanks!

 

UK is right hand drive so headlight beam pattern goes left. But since as good as the rest of the world is left hand drive, you blind them when you drive towards them...So you have to block or convert the left beam pattern...

 

After reading (and replying to) Grumpy Cabbie's thread yesterday, I went and purchased the remaining necessary items to get myself legal in France, although the bulbs are for a 1994 Peugeot 405 and the headlight converters will remain in their packet!

FYI, a certain well-known out-of-town car accessory store is doing up to 50% off touring necessities including all the stuff for continental driving if you need anything.

I remember painting my headlights yellow - that and the beam converters on my first car made driving at night quite interesting!

Malgre tout ça, la France vaut toujours un petit effort, hein?

 

Of the trip or of your girlfriend?

I'd be satisfied with either

 

Both, perhaps. Definitely the trip

 

The first part is illegal in international sense of the law as they are enforcing what is not legally enforceable by them.

France signed Vienna Convention on Road Traffic as most of the countries in this world, including UK did. This convention says that car legal to drive in the country of registration is legal to drive in any country which signed this convention.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic]Vienna Convention on Road Traffic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]



So they can enforce local stuff like speed limits, but they can not enforce head bulbs or windshield tinting rules on your UK registered car.

But they can enforce country sticker, installed registration plates and that you have proper certificate of registration of the car with you.

Enforcing anything else related directly to the equipment of the car is basically illegal.

Those details are good to know.

 

You are quite right, however try telling that to a police person who only speaks French and demands money on the spot ;-) Quoting the Vienna Convention is not much help in a situation like that, now if it was me by myself I'm quite happy to test the system and go to prison etc...But when you have a wife and children with you that is not an option either is it...

The act is great though and when I had my TVR it was great driving to Switserland for two reasons...Firstly that I made it which was always something to thank a TVR for and secondly the car is illegal in Switserland but a foreign registered version they can't touch so it was very unique and rarer than anything...

 

Concerned

Very, very concerned ....

:hug:

<sigh>

A person after my own heart, bless you