3 ms·

I live there, with a flat in Paris and a house 50km away. Commuting by car or public transport takes 1h30 to 2h, so up to 4 hours a day on the bad days. Traffi

I live there, with a flat in Paris and a house 50km away. Commuting by car or public transport takes 1h30 to 2h, so up to 4 hours a day on the bad days. Traffic is terrible. Parking is terrible. Train is OK ish and comfortable enough to work or read. Some trains (RER) are awful. Working remotely, 3 days a week around the weekend is the best. People indeed becomes quite aggressive, even if somehow disciplined. I worked in south India earlier this year, and I found people there completely undisciplined on the road, but very friendly. Like line splitting in front of a bus with a friendly smile and a gentle press on the horn.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>People indeed becomes quite aggressive, even if somehow disciplined. I worked in south India earlier this year, and I found people there completely undisciplined on the road, but very friendly. Like line splitting in front of a bus with a friendly smile and a gentle press on the horn. Exactly. There's local norms of conduct for traffic everywhere. There's standards for acceptable aggression and obliviousness (and other attributes). Paris, India, etc are all low on obliviousness. If you expect to be able to just blindly follow markings and signals and think that all you have to watch out for is the car in front of you you are going to have a bad time. India is lower on aggressiveness because the nature of the traffic there really doesn't lend itself to that. Likewise if you try to drive like you're in Rome in a wealthy American suburb or somewhere else where high obliviousness is the norm you're gonna piss a lot of people off because you're not gonna behave the way they expect.
- jeromenerf 6y ago
  Paris drivers as a whole respect the rules. At least many orders of magnitude more than in Madurai in my experience. The difference is how drivers reacts to the deviation from the rules. In Paris, it seems that revenge is preferred. If you honk me, I squeeze you. Or push the brakes violently. Then finger. Rome is more exotic but a lot quieter in fact. A lot less crowded too.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>People indeed becomes quite aggressive, even if somehow disciplined. I worked in south India earlier this year, and I found people there completely undisciplined on the road, but very friendly. Like line splitting in front of a bus with a friendly smile and a gentle press on the horn. Exactly. There's local norms of conduct for traffic everywhere. There's standards for acceptable aggression and obliviousness (and other attributes). Paris, India, etc are all low on obliviousness. If you expect to be able to just blindly follow markings and signals and think that all you have to watch out for is the car in front of you you are going to have a bad time. India is lower on aggressiveness because the nature of the traffic there really doesn't lend itself to that. Likewise if you try to drive like you're in Rome in a wealthy American suburb or somewhere else where high obliviousness is the norm you're gonna piss a lot of people off because you're not gonna behave the way they expect.

jeromenerf 6y ago
Paris drivers as a whole respect the rules. At least many orders of magnitude more than in Madurai in my experience. The difference is how drivers reacts to the deviation from the rules. In Paris, it seems that revenge is preferred. If you honk me, I squeeze you. Or push the brakes violently. Then finger. Rome is more exotic but a lot quieter in fact. A lot less crowded too.