New driving regs for 2026

[widge]

Hi, does anyone have an official link to the new driving regulations, my wife read me something from FB, but it was half new regs, and half rant, I have been searching, and with the exception of the offence of driving 50kmh+ over the limit now being a criminal offence with heavy fines and 3 year loss of licence, I haven't found anything official.

Searching in english, only linked me to newspapers, with pay walls, including Connection, which we gave up on years ago due to the errors in the information they printed.

Searching in french didn't get me very far, exept for the 50kmh+ change I have mentioned above.

Widge

[Blaze]

Le Figaro has an article with some or all of the things that will change. I couldn't find anything on Service Publique but didn't look for long.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/automobile/rada ... s-20251230
I'm pleased to see that at last they are going to remove parking places that are less than 5m from a pedestrian crossing. Of course some people in cities are already whining about the difficulty finding a place to park. The crossing places are often badly signed/not very visible, paint very worn, and appalling visibility for pedestrians and drivers alike - no wonder people cross elsewhere ...

There's this about the end of a permit for life.
https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/part ... tes/A18566

[RobertArthur]

Several changes in the Code de la Route and fines, a summary:

* Serious offences: stricter penalties for using a mobile phone while driving, not wearing a seatbelt, and alcohol and drugs (zero tolerance).
* Excessive speeding: speeding 50 km/h or more over the limit could be reclassified from a traffic offence to a criminal offence, punishable by a criminal court.

Mr Taxman:

* CO2 penalty: threshold lowered to 108 g/km (compared to 113 g/km in 2025); penalty ceiling (plafond du malus) raised to €80,000.
* Weight penalty (TMOM): applies from 1,500 kg with a progressive scale, affecting SUVs and heavy vehicles, even hybrid/electric ones.
* Eco Bonus, strict conditions: price < €47,000 and weight < 2.4 tonnes for electric vehicles.

Official sources:

Contrôle technique renforcé.

Permis de conduire.


A very long read, everything you want to know.

[Hotrodder]

The crossing places are often badly signed/not very visible, paint very worn, and appalling visibility for pedestrians and drivers alike -

This reference to road markings being worn out strikes a note with me. A mid day visit to friends on Thursday lasted longer than planned and we had to drive home in the dark. It was Hell and very exhausting. The rural road markings around here haven't been repainted for many years and I depend on using the line down the middle as a point of reference to know where the road edge finishes and the soft muddy verge and ditch begins. Its bad enough when the lines have long been invisible but when a late model car with super bright headlamps comes the other way I am blinded for quite some time. It was lucky there was nobody behind me trying to attach to my tow hitch as usual, because me suddenly hitting the brakes while I get my vision back would have been catastrophique.

[RobertArthur]

Hotrodder, you're not the only one: nearly all drivers say headlights are too bright. Not only in the UK or France, the same in a low and foggyy country behind dikes: " 25 January 2024. 8 out of 10 road users blinded by vehicle lighting. Dazzling vehicle lighting is a thorn in the side of Dutch road users. This is evident from ANWB research among more than 13,000 road users. No less than 78 per cent say they are regularly or always blinded by bright lights from other road users. The ANWB is seriously concerned about this. Together with its sister clubs, the ANWB is asking the European Commission for better regulations on vehicle lighting......This study was conducted in nine other European countries. "

[Blaze]

Having not been to the UK for nearly 10 years, I may be talking tosh .... perhaps things have changed there.

France uses crap paint for the roads without any sort of reflective properties. Whilst I've never been one to say everything in the UK is better (it isn't necessarily), the road paint is much better there. It's more reflective due to the little beads embedded in the paint.

Road markings are generally better in the UK and not placed in areas giving you a blind spot : Badly placed panels, shrubs obscuring visibility ...
Driving on an unlit motorway/4 voies can be less than pleasant. I drive a fair amount at night and prefer to take the Tiguan as the lights are better than the Golf. Control techniques don't seem to check the height of undipped lights (CTs are getting a bit of stick at the moment due to anomalies in testing). As for the one-eyed monsters

Driving in town at night is getting mire difficult with the new cycle tracks which seem to have priority over everyone else. Cyclists seem to assume everyone can see them when they're dressed in black, and if you're lucky they'll have a red flashing light to the rear .... and maybe even a front light !!

Sorry about the rant but recently I just missed a cyclist on the country road near here with no lights on and, yes, dressed all in black. Fortunately there was nothing coming the other way and I was able to swerve in time.

[hughnique]

i AM THE SAME WITH ONCOMING HEADLIGHTS AND HAVE TO SLOW RIGHT DOWN WHETHER i AM BEING TAILGATED OR NOT, i WAS PUTTING IT DOWN TO MY MACRO DEGENERATION. Sorry bloody caps lock again. Talking of road markings and a little off piste, our local SuperU must have at least 30 disabled bays right outside in the car park, and most of the time they are full up I would think with parking dodgers.

[widge]

Having not been to the UK for nearly 10 years, I may be talking tosh .... perhaps things have changed there.

France uses crap paint for the roads without any sort of reflective properties. Whilst I've never been one to say everything in the UK is better (it isn't necessarily), the road paint is much better there. It's more reflective due to the little beads embedded in the paint.

Road markings are generally better in the UK and not placed in areas giving you a blind spot : Badly placed panels, shrubs obscuring visibility ...
Driving on an unlit motorway/4 voies can be less than pleasant. I drive a fair amount at night and prefer to take the Tiguan as the lights are better than the Golf. Control techniques don't seem to check the height of undipped lights (CTs are getting a bit of stick at the moment due to anomalies in testing). As for the one-eyed monsters

Driving in town at night is getting mire difficult with the new cycle tracks which seem to have priority over everyone else. Cyclists seem to assume everyone can see them when they're dressed in black, and if you're lucky they'll have a red flashing light to the rear .... and maybe even a front light !!

Sorry about the rant but recently I just missed a cyclist on the country road near here with no lights on and, yes, dressed all in black. Fortunately there was nothing coming the other way and I was able to swerve in time.

I am with you with the road markings, I was in montpellier a few weeks ago, at night with rain, neither myself or my wife could make out any if the road markings. In fact at a staggered crossroads, I ended up heading down the tramway, luckily I have a car with good ground clearance, and managed to pull off the tramway, down over a high curb, back onto the road, even then I clouted the underside of the car.

The next day I walked past the same place, and for about 20m the curb was scared with the signs of other people doing the same.

[Hotrodder]

France uses crap paint for the roads without any sort of reflective properties. Whilst I've never been one to say everything in the UK is better (it isn't necessarily), the road paint is much better there. It's more reflective due to the little beads embedded in the paint.

You speak the truth. In a previous life I sold all manner of paint products for a large distributor. The road marking paint was a type of chlorinated rubber paint with the critical additive......tiny glass spheres that made it very reflective. As the top surface wears down it exposes new unworn spheres so maintains its reflective properties for years. The non-reflective crap they use here for road markings is little better than their cheap emulsion for walls that needs four coats to make itself seen.

How I wish the French would use catseyes.

[Blaze]

How I wish the French would use catseyes.

Not invented here ..... Percy Shaw wasn't French !! Yes, I agree, cat's eyes were a wonderful safety invention.

Again, I don't know what driving in the UK is like today, but the blatant disregard for speed limits here is hallucinant. Then there are those who whinge about the height of speed humps. There is no uniformity - some might just as well not be there - but there are some that are much higher and clearly taken too fast. People whine about how uncomfortable they are - well, there's a simple solution to that : SLOW DOWN !!!

Street lighting can be very bad, no wonder many people don't like driving at night.