This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study that found SUVs to be 20 percent more polluting and twice as likely to kill a pedestrian in a collision compared to smaller conventional cars.
Twice as likely to kill a pedestrian...if that number holds up this needs to happen in more cities. Driving an excessively deadly vehicle through crowded areas shouldn't be free.
I don't think some millionaire earned a 2x chance to kill a pedestrian by being able to pay. I'm not a fan of fees that only apply rules to poor people.
But outright bans are harder to get passed, so fees are better than nothing.
I fucking hate SUV's, and I drive one (company car, had no say in the matter). Tax them all to hell and back.
It's not free, at least not in Portugal. You pay an yearly tax per vehicle, the value depends on the vehicle model.
I'd love to see how they calculated those 20%. If it's merely a statistic of which type of car was involved in what share of deadly accidents with pedestrians, it says nothing about the car but rather about the drivers.
Once a car reaches a certain speed, it really doesn't matter if it's an ultralight vehicle or a tank.
Less mass means less momentum, so less force is required to slow it down, which means it can slow down faster in the time between noticing the pedestrian and colliding.
Higher hood means less visibility directly in front of the vehicle. It also means it's more likely to hit the centre of mass so the body takes the full force and falls on the ground the vehicle is moving towards, rather than lower so that the legs get pushed out and the body ends up falling on the hood.
On the flip side, they are more visible and generally louder, so pedestrians might be making fewer mistakes on their end.
The differences aren't about when they hit someone at a high enough speed any vehicle will likely kill them, it's about the thresholds between a harmless bump and a fatal injury.
And even if the driver is the main factor, that's all the more reason to increase the burden involved in driving them.
I think restrictions like these should also include SUV EVs. Safety is the bigger priority than incentivizing a few more EV sales and in the future, there may only be EVs anyway.
Honestly, they should just ban all SUVs from entering altogether.
Not because of the environment or safety, just because I hate that everything is an SUV these days and they are boring af
It's the carcinization of vehicles, they've all become the same thing.
Looks at Rivian, Hummer EV, and Cybertruck having crab walk features… yeah
Omg it happened again!
That would mean lots of people would have to buy a new car, which is much worse for the environment than to keep driving an SUV
Or people could just take the train or walk.
Remember, we're talking about Paris, not a third world country in North America.
It includes electric vehicles over two tonnes, and hybrids/gas over 1.6 tonnes
Oversized vehicles are just as destructive to the environment, regardless of whether they are EV or not. In order to move that much mass, they require exponentially more electricity, which results in increased battery size and therefore more mass.
This isn’t a flaw EVs per se, it is a flaw of obnoxiously obese vehicles.
Well they also exempt taxis and city residents so it’s not about safety or the environment it’s about the money.
All SUV should be banned, but at least city residents pay taxes to the city. Sub urbanites think that they own the city and try to force it's habitats to accept an insecure, congested, and contaminated city because is comfortable for them. If you don't want to live in the city, it's OK, but don't pretend the city have to back forward for you (not talking about you personally, talking about people who lives in suburbs).
Not being snarky: if it were about the money, would city residents NOT be exempt?
No good point, I appreciate discussions!
I think they know if it didn’t exempt city residents there would be enough backlash from eligible voters it wouldn’t pass. Seeing as it’s a fine and not a ban it can have secondary effects of improving safety and the environment but primarily it will raise money.
I'd love it if there were a wide range of offerings for EVs that aren't crossovers/SUVs. Once you take them off the list, it's slim pickings. Doubly so if you want range over 200mi, and doubly so again if you refuse to buy a Tesla.
"You can try the Mustang Mach-E, that doesn't have much SUV in it."
Glad to see an european country taking steps to counteract the trend of larger cars.
good. suvs are terrible in so many ways just for vanity
I hope that this becomes practice throuout Europe and the UK. UK ministers however will say almost anything for short term gain.
Only non-Parisians? :(
The article is wrong. Paris is divided in 20 districts (arrondissements), and the new fee applies to cars parked outside of their home district, as well as non-Parisians.
That is... Better than expected
Well, it would not be fun if people suddenly voted against themselves just to do the right thing for everyone.
For people not living in Europe to give some context this is what a French SUV looks like compared to a F150.
'Paris votes' but 5.6% of parisians made the effort. Laughable
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Parisians have voted to triple parking charges for out-of-town SUV drivers as part of the city’s efforts to address road safety, air pollution, and climate change.
“Paris is transforming itself to allow people to breathe better and live better.” In a video published to Facebook on November 14th, Hidalgo promoted the referendum by referencing a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study that found SUVs to be 20 percent more polluting and twice as likely to kill a pedestrian in a collision compared to smaller conventional cars.
The vote was closely monitored by other capital cities like London, which face similar challenges in tackling the various safety and pollution issues caused by the growing global popularity of SUV-type vehicles.
The increase in SUV parking rates is the latest measure Hidalgo has pursued to make Paris more friendly to the environment, pedestrians, and cyclists.
Paris officials have improved cycling infrastructure and announced plans to set up a traffic-reducing “tranquil zone” to reduce the flow of vehicles into the city center, for example, and successfully banned rental electric scooters last year following a rise in injuries and fatalities among users.
Hidalgo said last week that the removal of rental scooters had introduced a “feeling of liberation and calm,” which Paris aims to build upon further by reducing the number of SUVs in the city center.
The original article contains 448 words, the summary contains 223 words. Saved 50%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
So if I rent a 9 pax van and bring 8 friends to Paris, it will cost more money than if we all took separate smaller vehicles?
Article says they are tripling the cost, and 9 is more than 3, so...no.
Just be careful that those cars are not too heavy. Since this law says 1.6t , a Toyota Camry qualifies as an SUV
