SUV drivers will pay an 'auto-besity' fee for parking in Paris

Despite the abundance of magnificent boulevards in Paris that seem so inviting to big automobiles, the city fathers want drivers of plus-weight vehicles to pay more to park.

Although the proposed surcharges are ostensibly aimed at owners of SUVs — details of the plan are still fuzzy — reports so far suggest that the rules are to contain “auto-besity” and that size, weight and the vehicle’s motor will dictate the higher prices. 

Besides souffles and coq au vin, Paris is famous for its pollution, and under the new regs, electric vehicles are expected to escape the increased fees that are supposed to come into effect on January 1 next year (despite vehicle weight being one of the factors being penalized).

According to Britain’s Guardian, Paris councilors approved the measure in an unanimous vote last month. Frédéric Badina-Serpette, a councilor from the EELV ecology party that proposed the increased charges, said the aim was “to focus on an absurdity: auto-besity … the inexorable growth in the weight and size of vehicles circulating in our cities, and particularly in Paris.”

Officials say the number of SUVs in the city has increased by 60 percent in the past four years, and they now make up 15 percent of the 1.15 million private vehicles that choke Parisian streets.

David Belliard, a deputy mayor responsible for public space and mobility policy, said SUVs were incongruous in an urban environment. “There are no dirt paths, no mountain roads … SUVs are absolutely useless in Paris. Worse, they are dangerous, cumbersome and use too many resources to manufacture,” Belliard said, according to the Guardian.

Pierre Chasseray, a spokes for a drivers organization, told Le Parisien that SUVs were appropriate “family vehicles … we’re pandering to a tiny minority of the very urban population who have decided to make the SUV the symbol of the battle against pollution.”