I had an epiphany today driving from our village of 2000 people in St. Quentin la-Poterie to Uzes a village of 8,000 people 5 kilometers away through the countryside to the larger town of Nimes 30 kiliometers away with a population of 60,000. I realized that if I never went to Nimes or outside of the Uzege region (about the size of Marin country) I would be able to drive without ever stopping at a red light. The reason I realized is that there are no stoplights in this entire area. In 14 summers and over a year living her this is the first time I noticed this. No stoplights. The reason I even noticed it was because I was driving alone and had to stop at a red light.  Wow a red light I thought. I haven't seen one of these in a long time.

Instead France and especially in the country roundabouts are loved. Those beautiful circles that are planted with various landscape designs, fountains, vineyards (yes on a roundabout) gardens and trees. The French being a very civilized society knows how to weave their cars through the double lanes, pass a car on the left and cut over just in the nick of time to the cut off to the road on their right. Cars entering the roundabout yield to those already in the circle (first come firt serve) and somehow they all move together.

In driving through these roundabouts I’m amazed at the feeling of flow. There are no abrupt stops where you wait forever for the light to turn green or in the worse cases for the left hand turn lane to go, then the right hand turn lane, then the opposite turn lane, and ten minutes later you get to go. I could have finished the New York Times crossword puzzle in the amount of time I waited.

Now roundabouts have their challenges also, especially if you don’t know which direction to take. More marriages have been lost in a roundabout when the wife is reading the map and the husband is yelling “Which way do I go.” The solution is simple however; keep going around until your wife figures it out. Sometimes it’s one time around, sometimes two and our all time record was four times around.