You don't drive across yourself. You arrive and book a time on one of the three trains. There is one for freight; a double decker for cars; and one for buses and tall things. You are allowed to drive on at your assigned time, then thirty minutes later you are in France. There is another train somewhere for passengers, but nowhere do you just decide to drive to France and go through the tunnel. You can tell when you have entered and left the Chunnel because the windows in your train car go dark, then light. Pretty cool. And definitely fast.
Oh, a side note: the chunnel has so speeded up travel across the English Channel that people now regularly travel between London and Paris in 2 hours 15 minutes. It has greatly increased interest in day trips or a special dinner date between the two countries as well. Just those two results makes the tunnel appear to be a really sound investment, eh?
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