Who is Bison Futé?



I explained in my previous post how closely linked French holidays are with "la situation des routes" (the state of the roads, the traffic). A vast majority of French people travel by car, large distances, to their usual favorite holiday spot or to visit relatives. Millions of cars "meet" on congested motorways on particular days, at week-ends, in the middle of the month....To solve this regular occurence, after a mad summer on the roads in 1975, a service ( Centre National d'Information Routière) was created by the Minister of Transport in 1976 to predict the busy times, recommend quieter routes and  give advice on good road behaviour and safety tips. To make this information  a little more interesting, I guess, a little Native American character was invented, named Bison Futé ( Smart Bison) who shares his wisedom on TV,  the radio and now on the internet. The French summer calendar adopted a four colour coding system green-amber-red-black to symbolise the predicted traffic flow. The 1976 summer roads were half as busy. Bison Futé was a massive success. He appears now on all TV news bulletins and has become an institution. He received a new look for his 30th birthday in 2006. And since it is August 3rd, I believe we owe him our best but belated wishes for his 35th!
More on Bison Futé in French.