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In Ontario there's a "Ontario Driver's Handbook" which basically summarizes all the important laws associated with driving in Ontario: what the road signs mean, stopping for street-cars and school buses, turning right on a red light, etc. etc. People are expected to read this when they're studying for their driving license examination. It's clearer than the corresponding statutes (e.g. it's illustrated with the road signs and lane markings).

Is there any similar publication for France, on paper or online?

Is it published by the State, or is it an anthology that's published privately, perhaps for driving schools?

A French-language publication is fine.

I've searched online and I can find the actual statutes but not any learner-friendly publication.

Do learners learn by reading the statutes?

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    "Do learners learn by reading the statutes?" - note that there might be some other ways how learners acquire the knowledge that might seem a bit obscure from the outside. For instance, a basic familiarity with traffic signs could be taught in primary or early secondary education (to help students safely ride a bike), at which point the respective information could be "buried" in school books spanning multiple topics while there would be no real market for learner-friendly books specifically on roadsigns and basic traffic rules (at least on a "beginner" level).
    – O. R. Mapper
    Jan 15, 2017 at 19:47
  • Yes, thank you: for example there's a Signalisation routière by Larousse. Also, I take it that people probably go to driving schools. I already have a license though (from Ontario), so (instead of going to school) I only wanted to read whatever the French government wanted to teach people about the rules (e.g. priorité à droite, what they expect of you in an emergency, etc.).
    – ChrisW
    Jan 15, 2017 at 20:04

4 Answers 4

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I found a site (in french) that is the "learners resource" for preparing to pass the permis de conduire - containing everything from "inspecting the exterior of your car before getting in", through adjusting your mirrors, to driving, handling intersections, road signs, etc.

It takes a bit of effort to navigate through it all, and there are annoying advertisements. But if you can get past that, it contains all the information you are asking for:

http://coachcode.e-monsite.com/

Example of a screen shot describing the two signs that indicate you have priority (the first - "only for the next junction"; the second - "all junctions on this road"):

enter image description here

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    Thank you. Here for example is their page about priorité à droite: it is pretty detailed.
    – ChrisW
    Jan 15, 2017 at 23:38
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In France, it is called, the "code de la route" (road rules).

You will find plenty of websites offering online tests (since it targets learners who want to take the test) to verify your knowledge.

One popular is from the Codes Rousseau.

You can download the official legal text.

Enjoy!

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    Thanks. I found tests before I asked this question, but I don't think tests are what I was looking for.
    – ChrisW
    Jan 15, 2017 at 15:51
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The corpus of French legislative and regulatory texts governing roads is the Code de la route, however the name is also used more widely, especially to refer to pedagogical materials similar to the one you describe.

A search with this name on your favourite search engine or on French Amazon could be a good start.

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  • Can you recommend one or more of them, and say whether they're just a printed version of the bare statutes, and if not then what the difference is? Still the fact that there are so many of them kind of answers my question: i.e. there's probably no single good State-sanctioned handbook (except the statutes), inferred from the observation that there are many competing private publishers.
    – ChrisW
    Jan 15, 2017 at 15:57
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    Recommendations would be off-topic, but they basically all present the same material in different ways (since they are all aimed at people studying for the official driving exam).
    – fkraiem
    Jan 15, 2017 at 16:18
  • I'll visit a real bookstore then so I can choose what I'm buying before I buy it. I expected there would be a government publication (as well as the statutes), but maybe there isn't.
    – ChrisW
    Jan 15, 2017 at 16:25
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    @ChrisW: There is no official "simple" version that I know of, sorry. There are multiple editors competing with their own product, and providing the various driving schools.
    – Matthieu M.
    Jan 15, 2017 at 18:54
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Hello and sorry for my bad english,

You can find on Amazon the book "Code Rousseau 2017" which I find very interesting :

https://www.amazon.fr/Code-Rousseau-route-B-2017/dp/2709513927

There is a lot of websites to test your knowledge about french road signs, like this free test : https://www.codeclic.com/gratuit.php

Good luck !

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  • No need to apologize; your English is perfectly fine, as is your answer. Welcome to Travel Stack Exchange, and keep it up!
    – Giorgio
    Apr 1, 2017 at 0:37

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