Bigger Vehicles facing bigger bills in the future

Owners of larger vehicles could face increased parking fees if new local councils have their way. Bristol, Oxford, Haringey in North London and now Cardiff are all exploring the possibility of charging more to park vehicles of increased size and weight in their counties. The common thought is that because larger vehicles pollute more, cause more wear on the roads and just generally take up more space they should be forced to pay additional fees for parking in certain areas.

Outside of the UK this is actually common practice, with Brussels in Belgium using a length-based system, which charges increasing by €120 per year to owners of vehicles longer than 4.9 metres. Earlier this year Paris, France voted to triple parking rates for cars weighing more that 1.6 tonnes to €18.

Interestingly the proposed plans would also see electric vehicles included in the plans. Often EVs are exempt from increases in fees due to their presumed green credentials.

There are of course many campaigners who are welcoming the proposed policies with open arms, Oliver Lord is from the Clean Cities campaign group, he says it is “inevitable” that size-based parking charges will come to the UK, pointing to the fact that 60% of car sales in the UK last year were SUVs.

“These bigger cars not only burn more fuel, they take up more space. Even big electric cars have issues because they take up more room and are more dangerous than smaller electric cars. If you’ve not only got more cars but the cars are bigger, how are you going to adapt your city to climate change?”

However, many motoring advocates and journalists alike are claiming the unfeasibility of the plan, Erin Baker, editorial director at AutoTrader said “Yes it tends to be the bigger the car the heavier it is and so it’s less fuel-efficient. But it’s a clumsy way of looking at it.”

She also says it’s not always the case that larger cars have wealthier owners.

“If you look at key workers or people who live outside the city – these are not two-car families, these are one car [households] because that’s what the family budget allows for. So it will be big – an estate or an SUV.”

With larger vehicles there are often increased difficulties to find adequate parking, the standard UK parking space measures 2.4 metres wide by 4.8 metres long. While most of Autocar’s top ten family SUVs do fit in a standard space (8/10) it should be noted that 6/8 of those would be within 10cm of being too big, requiring precision parking to ensure the vehicle is within the allowed space.

There has been an online movement taking place to encourage the enlargement of parking spaces, largely due to the increasing size of vehicles and the popularity of SUVs, MPV, and 4X4s that use them.

It should be noted that Revive! has seen an increase in parking related bumps, dents, scrapes and scratches over the years giving credence to the bigger issues larger vehicles face when parking, either on the street or in a parking space.

If you do get into any minor parking problems, do not hesitate to get in touch with Revive!, who will be more that happy to make your car look as good as new.

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