The great Parisian anything

A raid on motorcycles and scooters took place yesterday morning on the sidewalk of Avenue Hoche, several meters wide. With the approach of sunny days, the great Parisian anything goes on with unsuspected vigor…

Harassed by the Town Hall and the Prefecture of Police, motorized two-wheeler users – yet more and more numerous (read) – are currently paying the price in Paris of a crackdown on particularly abusive non-annoying parking.

Yesterday morning for example, the bikers and scooterists parked on the wide, very wide, very wide sidewalk of Avenue Hoche, in the 8th district, saw a handful of officers melt on their mounts, each charged with sticking them 35 euros for "sidewalk parking", with the added bonus of"removal Querry"for good measure.

Ironically, this operation took place in front of the headquarters of the Road Safety Authority! "The lower motorbike parking lot is permanently saturated", explains a regular of the district (as in all the capital, editor’s note),"therefore it is customary for motorized two-wheelers to park along the guardrails that delimit the exit from the underground car park because at this point, the sidewalk is wide enough to allow passage for pedestrians, including people with reduced mobility".

But the notion of common sense does not seem to be more widespread at the Paris City Hall than at the Prefecture of Police. And while the first has an all-out communication policy aimed at journalists to show how active, efficient and irreproachable it is – when in reality it is a perfectly sterile verbiage – the second systematically ignores requests. official explanations and walled in a disturbing silence close to autism…

"We received instructions", nonetheless explains to Moto-Net one of the enforcement officers who, while acknowledging the absurdity of the situation, must"report this verbalization operation before noon"… It is therefore preferable that his logbook is well started when he returns to the base….

"I have parked my motorbike at this location every day for three years and have never been fined !", observes a victim of this punch operation:"Until now, the verbalizations concerned vehicles parked on the opposite sidewalk, in the direct vicinity of several embassies, as well as those parked along the facades because they obstruct blind pedestrians (who take the buildings as landmarks in their trips)".

While the same kind of scenes are repeated daily in Paris in general indifference, apart from the occasional mobilizations of the FFMC (read), it would be interesting to hear the manufacturers take a public position on the subject … Because when will have become impossible to park even without causing any discomfort, who will still buy a motorbike or scooter to get around town ?

Eric MICHEL – Photos DR

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