The facts took place this Friday, November 18, between Millau and Saint-Flour in Cantal.
This sexagenarian from Aveyron will long remember his incredible misadventure. This Friday, November 18, in the middle of the night, between around 10 and 11 p.m., this resident of the Ruthenian conurbation will have traveled more than 130 km on the A75 motorway… in the opposite direction, from Millau to Saint-Flour (Cantal), before running out of gas and being “recovered” by the motorized peloton of the Saint-Flour gendarmerie at the height of Coren township.
The anguish he experienced will have been equivalent to that motorists driving in the right direction that he will have crossed during this nightmarish hour for him. Fortunately at this time, traffic on the A75 was limited.
“A person unaccustomed to the highway”
According to information gathered by Major Jacob, of the Saint-Flour motorized peloton, the sixty-year-old, “a person visibly unaccustomed to the motorway network”, who was not under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, would have gotten lost level with the Larzac rest area before ending up in the wrong direction near Millau, then rushing into his mad dash, without being able to find a way out.
Driving at a good pace and in the wrong direction, his vehicle, a simple “family” Mazda, will be reported to the gendarmes around 10 p.m. For an hour, the police will try to intercept it without success. It will therefore be necessary to run out of gas just after Saint-Flour for the lost sixty-year-old to stop his extraordinary but dangerous journey there.
Heard in the context of a procedure of “endangering the lives of others”, the Aveyronnais, whose license was not immediately withdrawn, risks a summons to the court of Aurillac.
(SOURCE: AVEYRON PRESS CENTER)