My point was not that there are no direct comparisons but that this statement does not paint a true picture of what you might expect.
One thing on the condition of the roads is it does seem to depend on how much traffic they think will travel down it.
(Speaking for way down south) - ie the bit of france NOT covered by this thread...
I am starting to believe that they want to start pushing traffic onto the autoroutes and nationals. Then I watch them take a piece of national road that used to be fun to ride and not only downgrade it to a 'D' but improve it also - and that's in a 'poor' department. In terms of route planning - and I guess this is what the thread is about - then it is by no means a given that a D road will be lesser used or poorly surfaced - which is the picture I get when I think of a british B road (but then I'm a little like Wapping's Mum - what does Marmite taste like, again?)
There is no 'Bit of France' covered by this thread. What are you on about? The illustrative road signs I used were plucked from Google images, with no great thought as to their geography relative to anywhere else. It took me a while to find the right ones and they could just as easily have been around Argen, Auch, St Malo or Lille.
I'm sorry if - when I set out with the best of intentions to write a simple but reasonably accurate description of some particular French road furniture - I did not:
Paint
exactly the right picture, or
Make an
exact translation or comparison between road types, and
Create an
exact letterage designation comparison, or
Make an
exact allowance that sometimes it's just M. Bistro in his 2CV on the road but sometimes it's M. Plus-Grand in his camion, too.
I failed miserably to point out that the road surfaces can differ, even between similarly lettered roads, and
I also failed to make a clear and unequivocal statement that it is not an
exact science, whilst
Possibly the greatest crime of all, I did not make it very plain that France is a very big country (actually I should have done that, as most people do not seem to know)
But you see (and it's the only - I hesitate to say best - excuse I have) I have never had to take a French highway cod test.
In short, sorry I got it all
exactly wrong*.
* which is odd really, as you bowled in making an erroneous correction over the example in the road signs and screwed up completely the main meaning of Bis roads (twice). Then sought to pass off the reason for your basic errors as you live in the far SW corner of France, bringing a bizarre geographical twist to a thread that had nothing to do with French geography from the outset.
Go in peace.