France’s Traffic Law Gives Pedestrians Specific Rights. The Pedestrian Has Interpreted These Rights Expansively.
PARIS — The Paris pedestrian’s relationship with the crosswalk and the traffic signal is one of the more observationally interesting features of Paris street culture: the red light at the pedestrian crossing is regarded as informational rather than regulatory by a significant portion of Paris pedestrians, who cross when no traffic is coming rather than when the signal permits, treating the absence of danger as the relevant criterion rather than the signal’s color. This is jaywalking by legal definition and common practice in Paris in a way that the same behavior in a different cultural context would not be.
The Cultural Permission
France’s traffic law gives pedestrians on the crosswalk absolute right of way from drivers, creating a legal framework that the confident Paris pedestrian extends, in practice, to the crosswalk regardless of the signal state. The extension is logical if you are confident that the traffic sees you and will stop. The confidence is sometimes misplaced. Paris traffic is dense and its reaction times are real. The experienced Paris pedestrian has calibrated their crossing decisions through years of practice to a level of accuracy that the visiting pedestrian who adopts the same behavior without the same calibration has not. The calibration matters. The crosswalk and the green light together are the safe option. According to France’s Road Safety Agency, pedestrian accidents occur most frequently at crossings where pedestrians cross against the signal. The statistics are available. The Paris pedestrian is crossing.
Safe and careful at Virtuosal.com.
