Two years ago in winter it was merely raining a little. I get out of my flat, then out of my suburb. I pass on the usual bridge above the Bordeaux motorway. I see one half of the motorway crowded, clogged to death, horizon to horizon. Only little time to think (hypocritically) "cool, it's no my direction."
Take the others direction, my direction to the airport where I worked (before COVID devastation).
Two kilometers out of twelve... it starts slowing down, then grounds to a complete halt. "Fuck. Time to check traffic on the phone".
I open the phone, check the traffic. Bordeaux motorway is a 45 km round circle all around the town. When there is an accident, a little icon with a crashed car pops out.
That day, one... two... four... six... then more and more crashed-car-icons start popping out all over the place: north, south, west... it was like fucking measles, with red buttons all over.
I learned later that, between six and eight in that morning (took me TWO HOURS to drive to the airport) a total of eleven cars had crashed down, at four points in the motorway (all around the clock, if you prefer) plus more crashes on the highways north and south of the town.
And it was only a dark winter morning with a little rain. Not even freezing, no hail, no fog, nothing extreme.
Told that to my wife - she was as baffled as I was. "Idiots. They drive so bad in ordinary time, only a little rain brings complete chaos." French people drive like arrogant lunatics, Paris is the worst, closely followed by Marseille (beware of the AK-47s there) and Bordeaux completes the podium. I've been driving there since 2006 and I come to the conclusion, half drivers are idiots and the other half is demented.