Paris's socialist mayor backs call to ban 'killer' SUVs

[useapen]

Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, has backed calls to ban SUVs
from the city as she warned the heavy vehicles could become “weapons”
against other citizens.

The city council adopted a motion on Friday that calls on the government
to bar sports utility vehicles (SUVs) from within Paris’s perimeter, along
with any marketing material that promotes their use.

Ian Brossat, a communist senator for Paris, proposed a draft law earlier
this month that would allow local councillors to expel SUVs from the city.

The government of Emmanuel Macron would need to grant the council the
power to do so, and Ms Hidalgo has urged it to approve the measure as she
continues a decade-long road safety campaign.

It came in response to the death of Paul Varry, a 27-year-old cyclist who
was hit by an SUV in the city centre following an alleged road rage
incident last month. The driver of the Mercedes has since been charged
with murder.

Varry’s death sparked a major public debate about the sharing of public
spaces, with the rapid expansion of bike lanes over the last few years.

“Paul was murdered,” Ms Hidalgo said earlier in the week before council
members observed a minute of silence for him. “The car kills, it is a
weapon when used in this way.”

The city said that SUVs, which account for 25 per cent of private vehicles
in the capital, were responsible for 10 per cent more accidents than other
vehicles and were statistically more fatal for the victims they hit.

Mr Brossat said there needed to be a “wake-up call” to the road violence
plaguing the city and tabled a bill in the Senate that would allow local
councillors to ban the heaviest vehicles from city streets.

In Paris, more than half of journeys are made on foot, 30 per cent by
public transport, 11 per cent by bike and four per cent by car.

“Motorists kill,” added Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, the Green mayor of the
12th arrondissement of Paris, who was attacked by a motorcyclist while
riding her bike last summer.

“The public space has become the daily theatre of this danger exacerbated
by increasingly massive motorised vehicles,” she said. “We must go even
further to protect Parisians.”

But the opposition was quick to criticise the proposal, blaming road
violence on the mayor’s “chaotic” urban planning.

“The city of Paris has an immense responsibility for these serious
accidents,” Aurélie Pirillo, a republican councillor, said.

“Why are there so many of them? Because it has become anarchy in Paris.
This is where your chaotic management of mobility leads.”

David Alphand, another republican, accused the mayor of “exploiting”
Varry’s death in order to advance her “political agenda”.

The proposal is the mayor’s latest move in what has been branded her “war
on motorists”.

This month a ban was put in place on all vehicles driving through 1.8
square miles of central Paris unless the driver had specific business
there. Earlier this year the city raised the price of parking for those
driving SUVS into the capital.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/paris-s-socialist-mayor-backs-call-
to-ban-killer-suvs/ar-AA1uFC1i

[Siri Cruise]

Post by useapen
Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, has backed calls to ban SUVs
from the city as she warned the heavy vehicles could become “weapons”
against other citizens.

What are the fatality rates of collisions with SUVs compared to
les autres voitures?