The only thing an SUV is good for in Paris is battering your way into a parking slot.
Paris has about 800,000 parking spaces for a daytime population of about 4,000,000. More than half of the city’s public space is reserved for cars (roads+parking). Most of the cars are driven by commuters who reside outside the city.
Traffic moves at an average speed of 10 mph (about the speed of a bicycle).
Over the last few years Paris has also developed a serious problem with pollution.
We basically don’t have room for private cars, and the city government seems to be working towards phasing them out. Many roads have been altered such that there’s a reserved lane for busses, taxis and emergency vehicles, while private vehicles crawl along in the remaining lanes. A number of roads are closed to traffic on weekends, the riverside roads are closed to traffic in summer, more stringent anti-pollution laws have been enacted, and random emissions testing at police roadblocks can result in heavy fines etc. Anyhow, you get the idea, cars are no longer entirely welcome in Paris, and the SUV thing is just a minor detail in the big picture.
Although I love cars myself, I really don’t understand the mindset where people believe they have a “right” to take up public space with private vehicles - do you believe you have the “right” to fly a privately owned helicopter around the city’s airspace ? Do you have the “right” to park a bulldozer downtown ?
BTW GorillaMan we still give way to traffic coming from the right (except where specified otherwise - périphérique) - be careful when you drive here !
The circling swarm at the Arc d’ Triomphe during rush hour (which sort of resembles the ‘squiddies’ in “The Matrix - Revolutions”) would certainly be less entertaining without the 'right-has-right-of-way law.
Most, maybe, but apparently not all. The article itself mentions by name two SUVs with relatively large V8 engines.
Furthermore, even the sponsor of this bill concedes that he can’t simply single out SUVs, but rather is looking to adopt certain environmental standards for cars coming into Paris:
Essentially, then, they want to set certain minimum standards of envirnmental friendliness for the vehicles that use the city’s streets. Really not much different from the emissions testing undertaken by many US states. If SUV makers and owners feel especially put out by the legislation, maybe they can start designing some more efficient SUVs?
Dog80, the article you linked to presents very good arguments for banning SUV’s in Paris. Unfortunately, the French government wouldn’t be able to ban them altogether. They would be able to ban cars that don’t meet up to certain emissions standards.
If SUV’s could be banned, it would help to solve at least five problems:
pollution
oil dependence
reduction in need to buy SUV’s as a defensive maneuver
parking
traffic flow
The first people that I met on the streets of Paris were with Green Peace. I was glad to see that they are so active there.
Excellent news. I look forward to similar UK regulation against these selfish, ugly and obnoxious brutes.
My view has always been that cars should be taxed by volume as much as the engine size. You want a vehicle that takes up twice the road space and blocks out the sun? Fine. You pay extra road rental.
Bravo sir! Bravo! The originality and pithiness of your little jest was absolutely marvelous. The obviously encyclopaedic and nuanced feel for European geography and history – unparalleled. First the eye travels along the sentence to be confronted with the words German tank. This sets the reader up with a little tension, edginess. What crazy, off the wall thing is this guy gonna come up with? wonders gentle reader. Next; … welcomed with open arms! The ambiguity keeps building the tension! Is this mischievous scamp indulging in a devastating attack on the quality of the French fighting man or hinting at the infamous promiscuity of the French woman? It matters nought because the southern qualification lends the entire thing a further touch of WTF!? for it to all come crashing down around us in an explosion of hilarity with the climactic (but unexpected) France.
Dear reader is left to recover from an almost post-coital level of emotional, physical and intellectual release. I for one literally sprayed Dr Pepper, urine, saliva and twinkie particles all over my keyboard. Do not be put off by TwistofFate’s admonishment for he is is a Philistine unable to deal with your humour on any of its levels.
Go forth to wreak similar paradigm-challenging havoc in other discussions. Bad teeth jibes in UK threads, dingo references in Australian threads, and make mention of me frosted lucky charms charms if anything pertaining to Ireland comes up. You do have a .sig file to live up to.
Well fuck me. I had no idea people held such fond regard for the Vichy regime. I guess the fact that they were traitors to their own people, gleefully asisted in the killing of Jews,gutlessly jumped at every oportunity to sublimate themselves to Hitler and were executed for war crimes doesn’t really matter, because you posess the powers of sarcasm.
