They look like toy cars, trundling around with a faint haze of barely filtered exhaust hanging behind them.

Some appear to be barely more than an ambulatory plastic box with windows, while others adopt racy stances and faux-sports car styling. They are the voitures sans permis (cars without licence, or VSPs) and they are something of a menace on the rural roads of France.

They are what you might describe as an Irish solution to a French problem: cars that can be driven by people who don’t have a licence.

Drivers as young as 14 years of age can slip behind the wheel of one of these, assuming that they have had a few brief hours of instruction. But for once, this is a road safety problem which is more to do with advanced years than youthful brio.

France is still very much a rural country and one where a large number of older people still live out in Les Sticks and, just as in Ireland, public transport is a rare commodity when you get beyond the major towns and cities.

So the VSPs provide a lifeline for those who either have never had a driving licence or have lost one by dint of age and/or infirmity. The cars are legally restricted to just 45km/h, so the theory goes that even if Madame Pompidou can’t see beyond the end of her nose, she won’t be going fast enough to cause any serious damage to persons or property.

That's the theory, but the fear in rural town squares is palpable, especially on market days – and even more so when the bars close for the night. The VSPs are out in their hordes, and the old sangfroid tends to run a bit chillier when they hove into view.

Uses and abuses

Alan Wilkes

, now retired and spending much of his time at a house in France, is the former motoring correspondent for the

Evening Press

and I chatted to him about the VSPs, their uses and abuses. His ire on the subject doesn’t take much stoking . . .

"The 'sans permis' are a standing joke in France. But politically they're formidable, in a predominantly rural society, and with an ageing demographic, there are a very large number of them," he says.

“This is testified to by the range of vehicles available. If it was just a sort of social service for the aged and infirm, that would be fine, but it has become a resort for the convicted drunks, who have no licences and who are neither aged nor infirm.

“You can see testimony to this any Saturday or Sunday morning, when the baby cars can be seen arse over tit in the six-foot ditches which border all French secondary roads. In addition to all this, these little motors which are not permitted on autoroutes clog up the traffic elsewhere something horrible, as they’re so slow. But the politics seems to dominate, and while the rest of us are crucified by regulations, mostly unenforced admittedly, they get away with murder.”

However, the French government disagrees with Wilkes and anyone else who reckons that VSPs are a menace.

I contacted the French embassy in Dublin, asking if it was offering Irish drivers visiting rural France any advice on how to deal with this slow, plastic menace.

“The Irish drivers who come across this type of vehicle do not have any particular attitude to this type of vehicle,” my source at the embassy said.

“However, for the safety of all on the roads, and particularly for elderly people, it is advised to drive calmly in order to be more responsible. We all share the road and being tolerant and courteous is advised.

“In 40 years, the number of deaths on the road have greatly decreased, from 16,000 to approximately 8,000 at the beginning of the decade of 2000, therefore a figure that has halved in 15 years. It must be highlighted that these results have been obtained thanks to the strong measures supported by continuous public and political lobbying.

“Light vehicle quadricycles represent only a small fraction of accidents on the roads. And since 2013, the driving of mopeds and light motorised quadricycles depends upon obtaining a category AM driving licence. The conditions of preparation for the obtaining of a licence have been revised so that young drivers are further equipped with the knowledge of the rules of the road and the appropriate behaviour required of them.”

It does still seem a bit staggering, though, that someone aged just 14 can wander out onto public roads in one of these contraptions. Worse still, that someone who has been convicted of drink-driving and banned by the courts can do the same.

Sellers of VSPs are supposed to only complete a sale if someone can show them proof of licence and insurance, and most stick to the rules. The problem is many offenders are simply borrowing or buying the cars privately and thus evading that particular trap.

Road safety

It may sound like a funny aside, a ho-ho-aren’t-Europeans-gas? kind of joke, but it is a serious road safety matter when a European nation is turning a DeGaulle-esque deaf ear to unlicensed, uninsured and probably inebriated drivers pootling about in quasi-legal vehicles.

As Wilkes put it to me: "Recently I met an Irishman on the ferry whose daughter was about to drive in France. Should she, he asked me, fit her car with beam deflectors. 'No,' I told him. 'If she hasn't got them, she can't drive at night , and if she was my daughter, I'd be much happier if she didn't, as she might very well meet a drunken sans permis'."