FRANCE: Oversized, gas-guzzling 4x4s could be banned from the increasingly traffic-clogged streets of Paris within the next 18 months following a resolution passed by the city's council.
"Off-road vehicles are just not suited to towns and you have to wonder why people drive them," Mr Denis Baupin, a senior Green party councillor who tabled the resolution, said yesterday. "They're polluters, they're space occupiers, they're dangerous for pedestrians and other road users. They're a caricature of a car."
Under the resolution, SUVs (sports utility vehicles) could be banned from Paris city centre during peak pollution periods.
The plan follows similar remarks by the Mayor of London, Mr Ken Livingstone, who last month described 4x4 vehicles as "bad for London - completely unnecessary" and called their owners "complete idiots".
The Paris resolution states: "These vehicles emit almost four times as much carbon dioxide as more environmentally friendly cars . . . At a time when dwindling oil resources are generating conflicts and price hikes, that is totally irresponsible."
- (Guardian)