The Count is the only person I've ever known to get arrested for safe driving. This was especially frustrating to me, since we had developed an ongoing discussion about his kamikaze technique. He had driven with sanity while in the States, but the minute his feet touched French soil, he transformed into a wild-eyed fiend behind the wheel, and I had offered my opinion regularly. The Count commuted between France and Switzerland everyday. The incident I'm about to impart made it impossible for me to voice my opinion on his driving ever again. I just had to white-knuckle it.
One morning, while driving to work in Geneva, a police officer pulled The Count over to the side of the road and asked for his driver's license. When The Count asked what he had done wrong, the cop said: "Nothing. I'm giving you a citation for good driving." Then he handed The Count a big box of Swiss chocolates and went on to explain that this was a new program, put into effect by the government to inspire safe and courteous driving.
This happened in Switzerland, of course, not France. Such a thing could never happen in France. In the first place you never see a gendarme, let alone a traffic gendarme. And where, in contrast to the Swiss, who always observe all the rules and who wouldn't even need a police force if the French didn't keep driving through their country, the French consider it ridiculous to stop or even pause at a stoplight or to obey any type of traffic signs or signals. It's considered chicken.
I remember, while driving in California, The Count would be totally amazed whenever we came to a 4-way stop and each took our turn. The first time it happened, I was driving and the Count said: "What ees zee mattair? Why everybody he stop?" I explained that the driver to the right has the right-of-way when two or more cars arrive at a corner. The Count thought it was hilarious, a very strange custom, and said if they had such a rule in France it would not be "zee 4-way stop", it would be "zee 4-way colleezion."
The French do have a Russian-Roulette attitude behind the wheel. It's customary for a Frenchman to pass on a blind curve and it is absolutely mandatory for him to pass on a blind curve if it's raining or snowing or on an icy mountain road. Taking high risk is considered courageous and they have a very high death rate as proof of their courage.
I had to learn to drive all over again, otherwise I'd still be waiting for my turn at the corner. The Count instructed me never to let another driver know that I had seen him, but to keep looking straight ahead, turning only my eyeballs, because if the other guy knows you've seen him, he will bluff on through without stopping. I confess I chickened out a lot, but the thing is, I am here to tell about it.
Constance Feathers is an artist, performer, mother and author of Secrets of a Mysterious Older Woman, a humorous personal memoir book about her mid-life divorce.
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