Paris Bans Old Cars
Starting with the month of July, Paris bans will affect the daytime circulation of all cars older than 19 years. Motorcycles too have a date production restriction, which is set to the year 2000. And Paris bans will not be singular on a national level.
These limitations will be active only from 8 am to 8 pm during weekdays. Drivers with old vehicles who will not obey the interdiction will face a fine that can range from an insignificant €35 to a worrying €450.
The city of Paris introduced over time many such rules dedicated to emissions reduction. The first of these measures was taken in 2014 when the winter levels of pollution reached extreme quotas. Paris reacted with temporary car bans, which gave good results.
This success in improving air quality convinced the local authorities to repeat the prohibition periodically in congested areas such as Champs Élysées.
The current ban on old cars will be sequentially revised in time, reaching the point where the vehicles of Paris will be all only ten years old. This new interdiction is planned for 2020 when authorities intend to daytime ban all cars made before 2010 and extend the prohibition for weekends too.
Paris is known to have one of the worst pollution levels in the world.
The situation in Paris will not be singular. France has introduced a new national system to classify cars according to their emission levels. Starting with the first of July, all vehicles will be categorized into six groups. A windshield disc with the category will be made available for each vehicle.
These category labels are not yet compulsory, and the authorities give them up for free. But in time, each driver may be forced to display them, and presumably, this classification system will be the reason for further interdictions.
Meanwhile, drivers with 0% emission cars showing the category disc will have occasional benefits, such as priority parking.
In Paris, class discs will be introduced as a rule. The most polluting category of the six set, which includes cars registered before 31st of December 1996, will face the first restriction measure.
Former versions of the law provided even tighter limitations, dividing cars only in four categories. As an example, the most polluting class ban would have meant forcing 10% of cars in Paris to stay off the streets.
The old version of the rule provoked intense reactions. Mayors from Paris, Versailles, and Grenoble managed to convince the government to introduce a more flexible system.
In Paris, the restriction will affect approximately 30,000 vehicles. Even so, the other 2.2 million citizens living in Paris Metropolitan area may be the real beneficiaries of this limitation as they will enjoy a less polluted home city.
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