An interesting meeting in the Mairie (town/village hall)

This morning, the residents of our estate and the surrounding streets had been invited to a public meeting in the village hall to discuss a problem of speeding on the main road. Several people had complained about the level of traffic and the speed of cars on the road just outside the estate. I went along with about 30 people from the neighbourhood to meet with the mayor and some of the other councilors. It was a first experience for me, and I really enjoyed it.

The mayor was a master at leading a meeting where everybody wanted to talk at the same time. He was quite down to earth, saying that speeding was a problem on many other roads. He also reminded us that often, residents who ask for improvement are the first to complain after the works have been done. But he is willing to do something to help. I also noticed he didn’t promise anything he couldn’t later achieve, which is fairly good for a politician.

The discussion was fun. I imagine you always find the same kind of people in this type of meetings. One was a lady who was clearly out of context and wanted to complain about something else in another part of the village. You had the specialist, a man who sounded like he knew all the laws and regulations concerning road works. I can imagine that he is retired and has time to spare to research these things. There was also the man who got worked up because he is a lorry driver and he is fed up with all the road improvements that have recently been made and make it difficult for a lorry to go through or turn.

But we all agreed in there were a number of problems on this road. amazingly, nobody knows what the speed limit is on that stretch of road. Not even the police. We agreed to have some speed limit signs put in place. It will now be 50 km/hr (30 miles/hour). We also agree that the council need to make some improvement on that part of the road where there is no pavement. They will mark a space for pedestrians so that the road seems slightly narrower and people hopefully slow down. None of these works will cost lot of money, but hopefully it will help.

If you had told me 10-15 years ago that I would one day sit in a town hall for such a public meeting, I would have laughed. But I enjoyed that experience, and it was an opportunity to meet some of the people living on our street.