Some big deer ya got there

Mostly, driving in France is not that different from driving in the US. But we're amused by some of the highway road signs, like the ubiquitous deer-warning signs, a collection of which is shown here. Notice that the 2000m one has a special yellow diamond, perhaps using the familiar "baby on board" shape/color to indicate that it's just a little guy (compared to the 5000m, 7km, and 10km versions).

We've never seen one of these giant animals anywhere near a highway, but I suppose that if we did we could follow the advice on the sign here ("frein moteur" means "motor brake", i.e., low gear).

You might wonder what animals this size would eat. We think they probably graze on the herds of pinwheels that roam the hills of rural France (photo below). Thanks to the internet, we know that these little knick-knacks are only 122 meters (400 feet) tall, so they would probably not completely satisfy the nutritional requirements of your standard 7km deer -- and we have seen signs proclaiming animals of up to 25 km. Nonetheless, these little spinners account for 1567 megawatts of electricity in France (as of the end of 2006) but this is considerably less than the 20,622 megawatts they produce in Germany. Just imagine what the German deer must look like!