Traffic in Paris

Reports from a cruise on the Seine

Traffic in Paris, France is an exercise in chaos. Despite lane markers, traffic signals, etc., there is no discernible principle of organization. The controlling theories appear to be the intuition and extrasensory perceptions of the Parisians themselves. Cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, motorscooters, bicycles both electric and manual, electric scooters that used to be the toys of youth, pedestrians, and rare vehicles of indescribable nature all share every square centimeter of the streets. Generally they move unidirectionally, with the pedestrians at cross-purposes. Crosswalks are used, but with Gallic disregard for stop and go signals, giving vague attention to oncoming vehicles (which usually stop but occasionally swerve). Following the central example of the Etoile or Place Charles de Gaulle around the Arc de Triomphe, streets meet at all sorts of obtuse angles but more often without roundabouts. Somehow the meeting traffic sieves through each other like streams of rocks…