Ahead of the summer's first grand départ , or mass departure, for the coast this weekend, the transport minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, presented France's latest road safety campaign yesterday.

The pictures are shocking enough and the message - just, please, obey the rules - only sensible; but, like its predecessors, the campaign is doomed to failure.

The sad fact is that this weekend, as with every weekend in France, at least 45 people will be killed on the roads.

Last year the 7,643 people died on the roads (21 a day, or nearly one an hour) and 113,590 were injured, 27,407 of them seriously. The real death toll is without doubt considerably higher, since, unlike most countries, France does not include anyone who dies more than six days after an accident.

Since 1945, almost as many French have died in traffice accidents as lost their lives in the second world war. French roads are more dangerous than those anywhere else in Europe except Greece and Portugal, where surfaces are worse and cars older. France has than twice as many traffic fatalities as Britain, a country with a similar population.

The reason for this extraordinary massacre - the nation seems to calmly accept the equivalent of a medium-sized town being wiped off the map every decade or so - is a Gallic paradox: the French know what constitutes dangerous driving, but that does not stop them doing it.

A survey published yesterday by the IFOP polling agency showed, for example, that 69% felt jumping an amber light was a serious traffic offence, but that 83% occasionally did so.

Similarly, 63% admitted to having driven under the influence of alcohol, while 95% recognised it was potentially murderous.

A government study recently put the combined direct and indirect costs for France's road safety-failings, at about £12bn a year.

Desperate situations call for desperate remedies from the most unlikely of sources.

Infuriated by what he sees as a near-total lack of action from the political establishment, Louis-Charles Quinton, a retired property developer, has devised a project that would, he says, cut road fatalities by up to 80%.

"France's road safety record is our great unspoken national scandal," he said. "There is a complete absence of political courage to do anything about it; it is a monstrous political, administrative and commercial hypocrisy. The only tactic that will work is national mobilisation."

Given the powerful lobbies of the car, insurance, vehicle repair and legal industries (all of whom make money from accidents), an excess of confused legislation inadequately enforced, rivalries between different ministries, manipulation of the figures, under-policing, lax controls and a minuscule road safety budget of £35m a year, the establishment's interest, Mr Quinton says, is in maintaining the status quo.

His grand project, presented to various ministries with a predictable lack of success, combines the carrot and the stick.

First, a weekend of blanket media coverage during which every available member of the police and gendarmerie is deployed around the country to pick up on even the smallest traffic offence and inform the perpetrator, politely, that he has only one more chance.

Second, a week-long game in which every motorist would be a player. Stickers, badges, pennants on every car; newspapers, television and radio all promoting the event; a declaration of good conduct to be signed by all; prizes distributed to well-behaved drivers from the cash saved from the expected dramatic fall in road deaths.

A four-fifths reduction in French traffic fatalities, Mr Quinton has calculated, would free up about £100m a week for use in scientific research, social and welfare programmes and road-safety measures.

Firemen, police and ambulance services would have 30% more time on their hands to deal with other priorities.

Following this apparently impeccable logic, violence and petty crime would fall and France's huge annual healthcare bill would decline.

The price of car insurance, he predicts, would also fall by 50%, leading to a jump in consumption and a boost to the general economy.

National confidence and tourist revenues would improve, as would productivity and France's image in the world.

The plan is, of course, all pie-in-the-sky, and will not achieve its goals unless its receives full backing from the Elyseé.

But in the absence of anything else, and with the country's past track record of success with road safety campaigns, it is worth someone in the transport ministry having a closer look.

If for no other reason than for the sake of the 45 people who will die on France's roads this weekend.