Now I don’t want to make it a recurring theme in my blogs, as my French blog is often filled with class angst, but I feel obliged to have a rant against dickhead drivers and their dickhead cars. This all began in Vancouver, Canada, in 2002, when as a cyclist I was infuriated by the tossers with SUVs in the city. Other than contributing more choking fumes to the atmosphere and taking up an excessive amount of space, they’re pretty much good for nothing. These memories were jolted back last night when walking past a particularly hideous glossy yellow, reinforced steel design, super-sized Parisian 4WD.

Not that this is anything new. The neighbourhood is filled with ostentatious-mobiles that come in two styles: bad taste and good taste (check out my other posts here and here for a bit of background on the 16éme).

But what really takes the cake, in my humble opinion, are stretch hummers. Talk about issues! Ubiquitous on the streets of St. Petersburg (for one), these colossal monsters are a conversation-stopping, jaw-dropping hazards on wheels. I often wondered if they were designed for weddings in war zones, when one needs a limo with a wheel span wide enough to straddle tank tracks.

The funniest stretch hummer spectacle I ever saw was one that was causing a vocal traffic jam that stretched on for kilometres outside of Chernyshevskaya metro station in SPb. A smaller car had double parked in a way that any normal sized car could have fit through, but then of course, a stretch hummer happened to choose that route at that particular time.

Grumpy gridlock. That’s one thing about Paris though – or maybe just the 16éme. Traffic is frequently held at a standstill here, as the narrow streets are frequently blocked by removalists, garbos, tradies or caterers. But the inconvenienced just sit and wait silently without a word or honk of protest. Just the way things go, I guess!