It had everything for a Christmas movie… except the ending. Wanting to avoid the strike at the SNCF, Juliette, 22, had reserved for the eve of Christmas Eve, December 23, a carpool to join Annecy in Thénac, near Saintes in Charente-Maritime. But she was far from suspecting that her trip was going to turn into a nightmare, because of an error by her driver.
“The trip was 90 euros, Annecy-Thénac, so Thénac in the 17th”, it was indeed the destination displayed on the map on the carpooling site, tells France Blue this student, who wanted to join her family for the holidays.
But from Thénac, there are two in France: one in Charente-Maritime, and another in Dordogne. While Juliette intended to join the first, the driver had entered the second into her GPS. “I saw that we were a little below Bergerac, that she was wrong. She looked at us and told us that it didn’t matter, she was going to that Thénac, period. Too bad for us, ”explains the young girl.
“I really didn’t feel safe”
Juliette then tells France Bleu that she then asks to get off. The student then has all the less remorse that beyond this misunderstanding, the travel conditions are execrable. “I really didn’t feel safe. Especially since one of the passengers in the back was completely drunk, he was really weird, talking very loudly, as if he were on drugs, ”she says.
It is dark, she is on the side of the road, in the countryside. The minutes pass: she calls a taxi which will take two hours to reach her, to take her to Bergerac where she takes a hotel for the night. It was only the next day, by train this time, and despite the strike, that she joined her family, around 3 p.m. Price of the trip? 240 euros.