We were walking up the Champs-Élysées toward Étoile when we heard a horrendous racket of tearing metal. It sounded like a terrible accident, like a plane crashing or something. A lot of people suddenly seemed to be lining the edge of the tunnel that drivers can take from the north side of the Champs-Élysées to go underneath Étoile. The tunnel leads under the Arc de Triomphe to the avenue de la Grande Armée on the far side, and cars take it to avoid the swirling chaos of Étoile, where twelve large avenues funnel into a roundabout where the rule is devil take the hindmost, although en principe, it's priority to the right. (I never take it because I really enjoy driving around Étoile as fast as I can, scattering the pusillanimous left and right.)
"Let's not look," said A. "It might be horrible."
The gawkers didn't look horrified. They were laughing, calling out and pointing.
In the tunnel was a huge tow truck facing the wrong way up out of the tunnel. On its flatbed was a big 
Kiloutou truck [Kiloutou is a big company that rents all kinds of materiel from trucks to heavy equipment to tools] that it had just pulled loose from the tunnel entrance. The truck had perhaps been rented by someone with a weak command of French. The driver had zoomed full speed into the tunnel and sheared off the entire top of the truck, which from the look of it was made of fiberboard. The driver's cabin was untouched. There was debris all over the road and the tunnel was closed.
"And yet it is clearly signaled!" said a guy next to me.
A sign right over the low tunnel, visible only once you enter the ramp, says "2 mètres 4!" and another big sign lay upside down on the side of the road, obviously knocked off by the truck's wild ride. It said "DANGER hors gabarit!" Would you know what that meant? I guess the driver learned it the hard way.
Actually it's lucky I wasn't that driver, I might have ended up doing the same dumb thing... because that translation to me says "Danger outside size". I would have no idea what that meant by doing a literal translation (and I had to look it up anyway), but now after reading your post I'm guessing it's supposed to warn drivers of too-tall/oversized vehicles?
Posted by: The Bold Soul | 16 June 2006 at 05:20
Daughter was there too. Got some photos. Danger Low Bridge?
[IMG]http://photos-h.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v258/86/47/1255198570/n1255198570_30031039_8721.jpg[/IMG]
Posted by: NG | 10 June 2008 at 22:24
Thanks! That's a good photo of the event. I must have come along a bit later, after the truck was pulled out a bit.
Posted by: Sedulia | 11 June 2008 at 01:28
Hors gabarit means "out of gauge".
Because 2,40 meters is (much) lower than the standard height below a bridge.
There is a complete website dedicated to this tunnel:
http://www.2m40.com/
Yes I know it's in french, just watch the pictures (and laugh!)
Posted by: Onno Brandjes, Ghent, Belgium | 24 March 2010 at 10:24
Thanks Onno!
Posted by: Sedulia | 24 March 2010 at 23:45