In Pordic (Côtes-d’Armor), a municipal decree was issued 120 years ago to limit the maximum speed of automobiles to 8 km/h.
Although it no longer applies in practice, the latter has never been repealed.
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Have you ever tried to drive at less than 8 km/h? A TF1 team took up the challenge in Pordic (Côtes-d’Armor): it’s long, and almost impossible to meet. Very quickly, our journalists well exceeded 10 km/h, sufficient according to the archives of this municipality to stop them.
“The decree of 1903 says that the speed in the town center of Pordic was limited to 8 km/h, and we have not found any decree which repealed it”explains Floréal Carquès, head of the municipal police department. “We could stop vehicles traveling above 8 km/h”, he jokes.
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Still, today, officers are more lenient than their predecessors, with excess speed being restricted above 30 km/h. “We can control 8 km/h, but it’s not 1903 anymore”, laughs police officer Bruno Le Coat, interviewed in the report at the top of this article. The decree at the origin of this limitation was issued by the mayor at the time when the department only had 85 vehicles.
“Car owners cross the town of Pordic at a disorderly pace”, can we read in an issue of the newspaper “La Croix des Côtes-du-Nord”, dated June 1903. If this decree has never been repealed, it has since been replaced, specifies the current mayor Joël Batard. “There are a certain number of runners who could receive fines. The latest document is that of 2005 which replaces the speed at 30 km/h in the city center”says Joël Batard, with a little smile on his lips.
By bike, I exceed the 1903 speed limit three times
A resident of Pordic
Reassuring news for motorists, as well as some cyclists. “It’s an electrically assisted bicycle, I go at 23 km/h, that is to say I exceed the 1903 speed limit three times,” reacted a passerby. Others, however, would not be opposed to a return to slowness. “We take more time, we say ‘hello’ to Ginette, the neighbors. So why not, I’m not against it. I’m going to go see the mayor”jokes another, interviewed in the report above.
