Driving with or without a licence: an investigation into those French ready for anything! | M6 | Zone Interdite

40 million French people have one, preciously kept in their wallet or handbag. It’s a little bit of pink paper, a symbol of the rite of passage to adulthood, synonymous with freedom and independence. Difficult to get, easy to lose, the driving licence has become an often-indispensable ticket to getting a job. A million and half French people take the test every year and only one candidate in two succeeds at the first attempt. The pressure is intense, the wait and the bill get longer: you should count on an average of 1,500 Euros to get your licence and often much more. So there are some who don’t hesitate to drive without one! And there are more and more prepared to flout the law: 450,000 French people are said to be driving without that precious document?13% more than 4 years ago (source: ONISR-National Inter-ministerial Observatory for Road Safety). While this summer of 2012 has been more deadly than last year on the roads of France (a 3.6% increase in fatalities compared with July 2011), several drivers involved in fatal accidents were driving without a licence. Who are these French people who dare to risk their own lives and those of others on the roads? What tricks do they use to avoid detection? Why is it difficult to pass the driving test in France? Shady deals with the driving schools, fake documents, corruption: we investigate the driving licence fraudsters and the methods used by the police to get those drivers off the roads who are often more dangerous than the others.