City Streets and the People Who Drive on Them

The traffic in a major city can say so much about where you are. It isn’t just that your cab driver speaks the language of the town you’re in, it’s something more that can tell you about the way people there live, the way life is run. The French refer to it as a mode de vivre, a way of living. And in a sense, I guess, riding in a car with a French person can tell you as much about their life as driving on a rickshaw in the middle of Delhi, India.

The traffic circle surrounding the Arc de Triomphe is probably best known for its fender-benders than anything else, but I think it’s as good a place as any when examining the driving phenomena. It takes a little bit of insanity (or stupidity, depending on who you are) to get into a car in the first place. After all, it is a two-ton ball of metal hurtling across the road and it can just as easily helmed by someone as cool as Barack Obama, or as foolish as your just-turned-sixteen- kid brother ready to take the world by storm. Turning your car onto a notorious jumble of terrified and slightly maniacal drivers may be crazy. But it doesn’t surprise me so much when I think about it.

If you were to look at Paris from a bird’s eye view, you’d see a couple of things. You’d likely notice that there is a river, the Seine, more precisely, cutting across the city. Then you’d probably notice the distinctive color of a city whose buildings are awash with elegant facades of white plaster, paying homage to Napoleon and his attempts to beautify the city. You’d see the way the rays of the gray clouds covering the city give a mystery to old buildings. The history, it seems is built right into the sunshine here, and you may suddenly feel deeply in you that the city of light isn’t just a reference to the electric lights of the 20th century, but also a call to the beauty of a great city covered in its own unique light. Then you’d notice that this city is designed in a giant circular flow, a snail’s gray shell, rather than a perfect grid. All of its streets come together at the base of the Arc de Triomphe. A grand meeting of points at Arch of Triumph.

There’s something about the way the French live their lives, they call it the joie de vivre, the joy of living, and I think it says everything about what it means to be French. It means to enjoy all the little things in life, to savor the best – from the best coffee to the best bread, to the best – whatever. It means, too that what is central to life is not the acquisition of things, rather but moments that define our happiness in life. So, to some, they may look upon the wild ride of a French driver and label him a madman for driving just a little too fast. Or they could see that this driver isn’t just speeding out of impatience, but because every part of him is living in this moment, enjoying the power behind the wheel of his Citroen and nothing will get in his way from performing this act at full tilt – living this moment full speed.

It doesn’t surprise me that the French always seem to be driving at full keel, not one bit. Driving fast and furiously is one of those ingrained things – kind of the way the American can’t help but be the loudest person in the room. The French have never done anything half way, so it’s no shock that they would get in their cars and go go go, like there was no tomorrow.

So perhaps circling the Arc is just a wild dash to the other side of town, but maybe, just maybe, it’s just the French being, well, French.