City hire bicycles are too dangerous to carry children

When a young cyclist is allegedly murdered by an SUV driver, you know Paris’s notoriously dangerous roads are not getting any better.

Paul Varry, 27, was crushed to death while using a supposedly safe cycle lane in October 2024.

An investigation is still underway, and a criminal trial is imminent, but the bare facts can be published.

They are that Paul was returning home from work when an SUV ran over his foot on a congested road in the French capital, where traffic was barely moving. 

The subsequent argument was all too familiar – there were shouts, accusations and gestures, before, finally and tragically, Paul ended up underneath the vehicle. 

Prosecutors claim the driver was responsible for a premeditated attack, while the motorist’s defence counsel say he lost control of the vehicle in a stressful situation. 

This is, of course, an extreme example of the tensions between cars and bikes across the world, but it highlights how incredibly dangerous urban roads can be. 

Beyond people being triggered into violence in an instant, there are plenty who think traffic signals and crossings are there to be ignored. 

Add drug and alcohol-fuelled drivers in cities full of bars, and it all becomes absolutely terrifying. 

In which case, why on earth are Paris authorities encouraging small children to be placed in the centre of all this horror? 

Using typically crass jargon, the city’s municipal government has announced a scheme that “could revolutionise the cycling experience for many Parisians” by sticking infants on chairs on the back of two-wheelers.

Lime, one of the biggest bike-sharing operators in the world, is adding some 500 child seats to its fleet of already controversial contraptions endorsed by Ville de Paris. 

They are the ones you often see being driven the wrong way up one-way streets, or on crowded pavements.

Those who hire them seldom look capable of driving a golf cart across an empty course. Many are engrossed in their mobile phones while steering through traffic, and plenty wear headphones.

They display only a cursory interest in those around them, including the most vulnerable members of society.

London-based film star Joseph Fiennes dubbed Limes “crime bikes” in a recent interview, claiming many are used by snatch thieves.

As someone who regularly walks around Paris and London with small children, I try to avoid such bikes at all costs.

I have seen far too many collisions, or the deeply disturbing aftermath, when paramedics and ambulances are dealing with the severely injured.

Yet Ville de Paris writes – presumably without irony – that the new child seats on bikes are a “first in the world of Parisian transportation” and an initiative “that could change the lives of many users”.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, argues that the seats are part of an eco-revolution that will stop people transporting their children around in cars.

Her city has invested €400m in cycling infrastructure over the past decade, creating more than 1000km of bike lanes.

Yet by clamping down on one kind of problem, Ms Hidalgo is undoubtedly unleashing one that is just as worrying. 

Another particularly telling statement in the upbeat Lime launch literature are the words: “We must remind all parents eager to shake things up that helmets are mandatory for children under 12, and they will not be provided with the bike!”

The truth is that flimsy helmets will make little difference to anyone run over by a vehicle, least of all a child. 

To subject defenceless little ones to a risk that is already far too high for adults is nothing short of scandalous.