# Cars in France that don't require a drivers license



## mbsfrance

Does anyone know where you can find a list of the types of small cars that don't require a driving license? I know there are several options but not sure of the full list.


----------



## DrChips

Hi

Try this for a start:








Les principaux constructeurs de voitures sans permis - LeLynx.fr


Véritable effet de mode, à lier également au durcissement des mesures de sécurité routière, les voitures sans permis se vendent comme des petits pains. En effet, tous les ans, ce sont 10% de ventes en plus enregistrées par les constructeurs de voiturettes.




www.lelynx.fr





Good luck, some are UGLY some are almost normal!!


----------



## Clic Clac

DrChips said:


> Good luck, some are UGLY some are almost normal!!


All are slow. 😁


----------



## EuroTrash

And all are surprisingly expensive to insure.


----------



## ARPC

The cost of eschewing official licensure I suppose?


----------



## EuroTrash

ARPC said:


> The cost of eschewing official licensure I suppose?


Or maybe they are simply regarded as a high insurance risk.
You do see a rather high proportion of sans permis with scrapes and dents in the side and bumpers torn off. I suppose it is justifiable to suppose that a person who does not have a driver's licence will not necessarily have the same level of driving skills as a person who does. Even if they tend to have minor bumps and are covered for third party risks only, the third party claims are still going to be high.


----------



## Bevdeforges

I suspect that the limited power (i.e. limits on how fast they can go, thus how maneuverable they would be in a "difficult" situation) may result in more dings and potential accidents. There is also the "road rage" they can induce in the regular drivers if they venture out on the departementals and other roads with speed limits at least twice as fast as these vehicles' maximum speeds. 

Back where I come from, they are banned from roads precisely because they are underpowered and assumed to pose a threat (I guess because they can't maintain what some folks claim are the "minimum speeds" on certain roadways.) We've got a couple of these vehicles out where I live that I often encounter on the departementals that you have to take to get anywhere you might actually want to go. Some of the drivers on the road get amazingly annoyed and go careening around them at very high speeds (sometimes in very dodgy circumstances). Have yet to see them "cause" an accident, but I can easily imagine that happening the way some drivers react to someone "driving too slow."


----------



## EuroTrash

TBH I think it the nuisance they cause is sometimes perception rather than fact.
In the UK my brother used to have a Reliant three-wheeler. I don't know how familiar our translatlantic cousins are with Reliant Robins and the whole image around them but they are or were "a thing" in the UK. You can drive them on a motorbike licence so they were popular with ageing bikers who never took a car test. They have 850cc engines and fibreglass bodies and they're not particularly stable at speed but they are nippy and can break speed limits with ease. But many car drivers have a problem with following a Reliant Robin. Their ego can't take it, they just have to get past, even though having overtaken they continue at exactly the same speed the Robin was going at, or even slightly slower. The important thing is that they are in front of the Robin rather than behind it.
I suspect it may be the same with Aixams et al because some of them bomb along quite respectably. I agree they do sometimes go abnormally slowly but is that the driver rather than the car, and if the same elderly lady or gent was driving at the same speed in a normal small car rather than an Aixam, would it provoke the same level of road rage, probably not.
Reliant Robins are quite light and several times my brother's Robin was turned over onto its side whilst it was parked, by drunken yobs who must have thought it was a funny thing to do. For some reason "real men" seem to think Reliant Robins and their drivers are fair game although in fact my brother was a 6' 3" hairy biker and I don't think many people would have picked on him when he was outside of his Robin.


----------



## Bevdeforges

Actually, I think the "latest article on the subject" that appears on the site noted above may explain the issue of expensive insurance on these vehicles: Echec retentissant au crash-test des voitures sans permis

I think the 3-wheeled cars were also a thing here in France for a while. There was actually one of those (no idea if they were the same brand as the UK version) that would turn up now and then in town here. But from what you say, those Robins were underpowered like the current no-license-required vehicles. Top speed of the current round of the Aixams and the like is fixed at 45 kph, with 40 kph the usual cruising speed out on the departementals. Have seen a couple of articles/features in the French news saying that in France the sans permis are popular for families for their teens, as I think they can be legally driven by kids as young as 14. Saves Mom and Dad having to ferry them around to, from and after school.


----------



## EuroTrash

Bevdeforges said:


> But from what you say, those Robins were underpowered like the current no-license-required vehicles. Top speed of the current round of the Aixams and the like is fixed at 45 kph, with 40 kph the usual cruising speed out on the departementals.


No, not at all. I used to drive my bruv's sometimes and with an 850cc engine and as light as a feather it went pretty fast, 70 mph wasn't a problem. According to this the top speed is 85mph although I am sure I never did that! 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin#:~:text=The%20Reliant%20Robin%20aimed%20to,give%2060%20to%20100%20mpg


.

But a three-wheeler wasn't the same as a sans permis because you did need a bike licence to drive it. I was using it as an example of how the urge to overtake and the red mist that rises is sometimes irrational. I hadn't realised that sans permis are limited to 45km/h, that is quite slow.


----------



## Befuddled

The Reliants weren't all that bad going fast in a straight line. As long as avoiding potholes with all three wheels wasn't required. The problems began when you tried to react quickly to avoid something suddenly, or take a corner too fast. Those manoeuvres could provoke a brown trouser event.

One of the Aixam models (not the current one) I quite like. A proper little car looking a bit like the early Renault Twingo at the front. I was keen to get one and do an engine swap for a small but heavily tweaked FWD unit. Then I discovered how much they cost. Frightening outlay for something I would never be allowed to use on French roads.


----------



## Bevdeforges

EuroTrash said:


> No, not at all. I used to drive my bruv's sometimes and with an 850cc engine and as light as a feather it went pretty fast, 70 mph wasn't a problem. According to this the top speed is 85mph although I am sure I never did that!


Fumble fingers strikes again - I intended to write that "those Robins were*n't *underpowered" given the 850 cc engine. But I've managed to get stuck behind one of the sans permit cars on the departemental here - on the stretch where the road turns enough that you can't possibly pass them anyhow. I always figure it's a couple of little old retirees until my husband said that the usual assumption here is that they are being driven by someone who has lost their regular driving license. (Only now it's the teenagers that seem to be driving them.)

Found something online about "there are models of the sans permis vehicles that will do up to 75 kph" but in another article I found it said that any of these have been "souped up" by the owners and they are NOT street legal here in France. Sounds like a problem best avoided altogether.


----------



## BraveHorse

There are not cars. They're less safe, and limited to 45 kph, I think.
The Citroen Ami is one of them.


----------

