Bike ride to Parc de la Villette and priority to the right

Biking to La Villette

This Saturday, we biked over to Parc de la Villette.  It seemed like the rest of Paris was also outside, taking advantage of the sun.  After taking a nap on the grass, we continued biking along the Canal de l'Ourcq for a bit, before turning back.   We stopped for dinner at Belushi's, where it seemed that the waiters preferred to speak English rather than French.  Not that I minded :)  The total trip was around 25 km.

The route to the park:

La Géode

The canal

Me in front of the canal

You can never have too many pictures of huge shiny bawlz

The SETI at work

"Art"

Priority to the right

The other day, as I was biking home from work, I was heading east on a rather large street (an avenue with traffic in both directions), and a motorcycle delivering sushi was waiting on a small one-way perpendicular side-street.  He was facing north, and wanted to turn right (east) onto the avenue.  He entered the avenue just as I approached the intersection.  

Seeing as he cut me off, I rang my bike bell (which is quite loud :)) several times.  Much to my surprise, he actually stopped to talk to me.  He told me that he had the right of way.  I couldn't believe that a vehicle entering a large avenue from a small one-way side street could possibly have priority over the traffic on the avenue, and I insisted upon this point.  The driver of the motorcycle simply just kept repeating one phrase: "priority to the right".  He also offered, in a rather condescending way, to buy me a book of traffic code in France...  My big mistake in this whole ordeal is forgetting that the traffic code in France (or anywhere, I suppose) is not always logical or even safe.  Indeed, since there was no other signage or markings on the ground at this intersection, the priority by default is given to the right, regardless of the size or "importance" of the two streets.  Sigh.  I hope I never see Mr. Sushi again, because I'm quite embarrassed now.  Fortunately, that is not the road I usually take to go home.  I did find some consolation by discovering that other people on forums complain about the priority-to-the-right not making sense or even being safe in some cases.