Car size should be regulated and a maximum should be enforced. Pavement parking (and other antisocial forms of parking) should also be banned.
In the UK, local authorities are in charge of parking enforcement. In Oxford they largely don't bother: I see vehicles parked on yellow lines every day. I can't fathom why, this is an opportunity to raise revenue!
An article shared recently said that road damage is weight^4. Make a car tax based on vehicle weight and the market takes care of itself. For the right classes (such as wheelchair accessible) it can be a tax write-off.
I feel that all those people who talk about reducing car size and use probably don’t have a family. I have twin 6 month olds and the only cars we currently use is the Toyota Corolla from a local car sharing service. Two car seats in the back leave basically just enough room between for my wife to fit sideways inside the middle seat. She can’t stay in there for longer than a few minutes and if we get in a car accident, she is not gonna have a good time. Also, have you tried putting a child in a car seat while avoiding hitting their head on the roof of the car? It’s a tricky thing. Those are two reasons that two people who worked hard on reducing their environmental footprint end up in a situation where we have to look into buying an SUV.
And don’t get me started on avoiding cars altogether: with hospital appointments that take 15 min to drive to but would take hours of public transit to get to, the need to buy more food at a cheaper price and the fact that transit options are often not accessible with a stroller (good luck bringing a double stroller up and down a few flights of stairs) means that you need to use a car.
My suggestion: please either fix public transit so families can actually use it and organise the city so services are accessible, or offer cars that can accommodate a reasonable sized family while being environmentally friendly.
Fyi, I live downtown in a major North American city that is known for having good public transit.
Parking issues are caused by number of vehicles on the road and lack of planning. Many roads in the UK are very narrow with narrow pavements: There is no space to 'properly' park even if all cars are small-ish.
I have rarely seen roads with parked cars blocking half the road in Europe (at least in France) whereas this is common here in the UK.
The article does discuss one of the main causes - safety.
If you require various crumple/impact zones for safety reasons, which are usually all about controlling the impact deceleration over a longer period of time, i.e. less g-force on the occupants etc, then the relevant car parts get larger. Doors get thicker, front and back get extended etc.
I suspect it would be quite difficult to walk back those changes, so it may be better to roll with them a little, and dictate better minimum sizes for car parking spaces. (Which might dovetail quite nicely with the increased weight of electric cars - which apparently causes issues with multi-storey parking structures which are designed around lighter cars, and may not be structurally safe if filled to capacity with vehicles 50-100% heavier than expected).
(Not counting the truly ludicrous outliers - like the mentioned EV Hummer and Rolls Royce etc).
> Car designer Chris Longmore... blames safety legislation for the dramatic increase in size since the 1990s.
This doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
For example, the 2022 Toyota Aygo X has a 4 star NCAP safety rating (out of a possible 5) [1], and is about the same size as the original 1970s VW Golf [2].
Cars are crash tested against one-another, not against a benchmark car. This means that the tiny Aygo-X was crash tested with another Aygo-X, not with a Ford "danger" Ranger or a Range Rover or a Juke.
Normal cars (Not SUVs, pickups) have got slightly larger, there's no excuse for cars that are big for the perceived safety of being the largest car on the road
The current annual car tax in the UK is a freaky thing.
For cars registered before March 2001, it's a payment based on engine size (smaller or larger than 1.55 litres); couldn't tell if that's aimed at perceived wealth, pollution, or just leftover because that's how it was back when those cars were new.
March 2001 to March 2017, it's a payment based on CO2 emissions. Pollution based.
April 2017 to present day, it's a payment in the first year based on CO2 emissions, and each year after that a fixed rate based on fuel type only, EXCEPT that if the list price was over 40000 GBP in which case it's a bit higher for the 2nd to 6th years only. So pollution based for the first year, and then a short period of perceived wealth based, and then just a poll tax.
Come on UK, pick one! Are we taxing this based on pollution, apparent wealth or just plain poll?
Oh yes, also; if your vehicle was registered in 1983 or earlier, you can register it as exempt from this tax entirely. A UK nod to encourage classic car enthusiasts and people who are just really good at car maintenance, I guess!
It changes every so often. There was a time when this annual tax had nothing to do with CO2 emissions; that was judged to then be something that should be discouraged by means of this tax, so it changed.
If weight of vehicle is now a meaningful factor, an obvious step is to make this tax higher for heavier vehicles.
AIUI the engine size thing is a relic of the oil crisis; there was a desire to disincentivise high-consumption cars. At the time they wouldn't have been thinking primarily about pollution.
I'm not familiar with the UK tax but here in NZ, new car tax has become a political football. The current opposition party tagged it the "Ute tax", which seems to have resonated with the more easily outraged members of society and those who crowd city streets with their stupidly large trucks for school drop-off.
I anticipate politics-driven tinkering with it from here on in. Perhaps we will look like the UK after a few more political cycles.
The main cause of heavier new cars is the weight of the batteries in EVs. If we're all going to get EVs, we're all going to put heavier cars on the road... Regarding size, my experience of UK roads and parking spaces is that the biggest issue is indeed the increased width of cars.
In any case wider roads should be built if only to accomodate decent cycle lanes, which is also something touted as the way forward.
Britain's road were inadequate for the ammount of cars pushed into it to begin with. A nation that tries to rationalize napkin sized 'gardens' and two level homes as 'proper' on the basis of 'our island has limited space' pours ever increasing ammount of cars into this limited space, into the medieval sized road network and infrastructure and prioritize personal car use almost everywhere (with relatively negligible exception, most are in London) if it was the prairie of the america's, has priority over public transport and to a good degree pedestrians too (traffic lights favour cars), incentivising personal car use where it has admittably no proper environment! Car parks are erected in the very center of the cities attracting cars, cars occupy one lane of the two lanes available in almost every town's main street and all residential streets alowing single car width for two way traffic requiring patiece and courtious driving style not to grind traffic to a halt but more like to crawling speed (driving time in most regions is pathetic) while the few incentive with P+R and partial separation of public transport is mixed together with car lanes bringing it to halt and making inattractive in the times it was supposed to help the most (high traffic periods). High portion of single lane roads, houses built to the very edge of the road, kerbs in rural area roads, stone or bush fences at the vertical of your rear view mirror to protect pastures and meadows and basically any inch of private property from public access roads making it impossible to improve. Cars were poured into this inadequate situation without any considerable effort to develope proper and sustainable alternatives for many many many decades, and into the forseeable future. All aggravetad by the insufficient funds allocated to the maintainance of the roads so the road surfaces are in increasingly terrible state already, half or whole decades passing by until simple road faults fixed.
It is not the SUVs and EVs that caused this problem but decades of ignorance towards building a suitable and proper system that fits the conditions of Britain.
I think one factor in the gradual increase in car size is the problem of visibility.
A lot of new large cars are not only large ( taller and wider ), but have a tendency to have privacy type glass. This means if you are in a traditionally sized car behind you can't see much of the road ahead.
Driving in a busy city, the lack of visibility of what's happening beyond the car ahead is very disconcerting.
Solution? Get a bigger car yourself, with a higher driving position.
To be fair they are working on legislation to ban disposable vapes now. And they've been seizing millions of illegal and dangerous ones for ages. And the water companies are getting fined heavily for dumping sewage.
Humanity is putting too many cars on the road. And average car has too big an environmental footprint. And:
“We don’t need electric windows. In the 1970s, face-level vents were introduced, so the reason for having windows has largely gone away. And why do we need motor-powered seats? Most people don’t move their seat. All these creature comforts that we hardly ever use add weight.”
Go back to essentials, and you can shed a looott of weight (and size, too. Besides cost & environmental footprint).
That's the heart of the problem. The phenomenon described in the article is just one of many symptoms of this. And we (or our governments) are not addressing the root problem as strongly as needed.
Expect things to get worse before they get better.
AFAIK in many countries there is also the double whammy of heavy electric cars eroding the roadways a lot more, but not paying for the increased maintenance costs with petrol tax.
In the UK, road maintenance is paid for by income tax, though reduced fuel duty will affect public finances. However, fuel duty has been frozen for a number of years, so it doesn't look like the Tories want to stop people sitting in cars.
The road damage from EVs hardly matters compared to HGVs, buses and the biggest vehicles. Road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of weight, so cars aren't responsible for most of it. This can be verified by looking at bus stops and invariably the road surface is damaged by the bus stopping and starting there. A similar effect can be seen at traffic lights.
Japan's road too, except that there are narrower width JDMs like K-car, A-seg crossover, and minivan. It's annoying that mid-sized C-seg JDM is no longer a thing and they lacks EV lineup except Nissan Sakura K-car.
For any problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
On that basis, what would be wrong with the combination of encouraging (electric?) motorbikes while also making changes to road furniture to improve motorbike safety?
I haven't read the article (paywall), but does it explain why roads in the UK are specifically worse than elsewhere in Europe? Like I've driven this year in Scotland, Czechia and Cyprus and despite constant roadworks in Scotland the road quality is so much worse its not even a contest. Why? At least visually it seems like the same sort of cars one sees driving around (although there may be fewer older cars in the UK, due to rust issues and strict MOT requirements...)
I cannot comment on the scenario that the roads here are worse than in other European countries, but from my observations of the roads in Hampshire I would guess that:
1. We have oversized articulated lorries running down smaller village roads. The ones that are extra tall, that we didn't have 20 years ago and which also damage trees. Other locations seem to do better with rules barring them from coming off the main motorways.
2. The local council has been defunded by central government, who also tries to take more locally raised money central for pet projects in London. As such we don't have the cash for road repairs. There are a lot of patch jobs these past couple of years that don't last, the roads need proper resurfacing. I see a lot of EVs around here, and I don't know what it's like in Czechia but the additional weight of the EVs are only making it worse when compounded with the other problems.
[+] [-] yrro|2 years ago|reply
In the UK, local authorities are in charge of parking enforcement. In Oxford they largely don't bother: I see vehicles parked on yellow lines every day. I can't fathom why, this is an opportunity to raise revenue!
[+] [-] Pet_Ant|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robnado|2 years ago|reply
Fyi, I live downtown in a major North American city that is known for having good public transit.
[+] [-] moomin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|2 years ago|reply
I have rarely seen roads with parked cars blocking half the road in Europe (at least in France) whereas this is common here in the UK.
[+] [-] gertrunde|2 years ago|reply
If you require various crumple/impact zones for safety reasons, which are usually all about controlling the impact deceleration over a longer period of time, i.e. less g-force on the occupants etc, then the relevant car parts get larger. Doors get thicker, front and back get extended etc.
I suspect it would be quite difficult to walk back those changes, so it may be better to roll with them a little, and dictate better minimum sizes for car parking spaces. (Which might dovetail quite nicely with the increased weight of electric cars - which apparently causes issues with multi-storey parking structures which are designed around lighter cars, and may not be structurally safe if filled to capacity with vehicles 50-100% heavier than expected).
(Not counting the truly ludicrous outliers - like the mentioned EV Hummer and Rolls Royce etc).
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|2 years ago|reply
Funnily enough I saw a traffic warden issuing tickets in Oxford last week.
[+] [-] monooso|2 years ago|reply
This doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
For example, the 2022 Toyota Aygo X has a 4 star NCAP safety rating (out of a possible 5) [1], and is about the same size as the original 1970s VW Golf [2].
[1] https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/Toyota/Aygo%20X/46259
[2] https://www.automobiledimension.com/model/toyota/aygo-x
[+] [-] gertrunde|2 years ago|reply
The Aygo is, in theory, categorised as A-segment, along with the VW Up! and Fox, as opposed to the Polo (B-segment) or Golf (C-segment).
i.e. maybe not directly comparable with a car considered to be two size categories further up the scale.
[+] [-] eptcyka|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] secretsatan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EliRivers|2 years ago|reply
For cars registered before March 2001, it's a payment based on engine size (smaller or larger than 1.55 litres); couldn't tell if that's aimed at perceived wealth, pollution, or just leftover because that's how it was back when those cars were new.
March 2001 to March 2017, it's a payment based on CO2 emissions. Pollution based.
April 2017 to present day, it's a payment in the first year based on CO2 emissions, and each year after that a fixed rate based on fuel type only, EXCEPT that if the list price was over 40000 GBP in which case it's a bit higher for the 2nd to 6th years only. So pollution based for the first year, and then a short period of perceived wealth based, and then just a poll tax.
Come on UK, pick one! Are we taxing this based on pollution, apparent wealth or just plain poll?
Oh yes, also; if your vehicle was registered in 1983 or earlier, you can register it as exempt from this tax entirely. A UK nod to encourage classic car enthusiasts and people who are just really good at car maintenance, I guess!
It changes every so often. There was a time when this annual tax had nothing to do with CO2 emissions; that was judged to then be something that should be discouraged by means of this tax, so it changed.
If weight of vehicle is now a meaningful factor, an obvious step is to make this tax higher for heavier vehicles.
[+] [-] rsynnott|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beachy|2 years ago|reply
I anticipate politics-driven tinkering with it from here on in. Perhaps we will look like the UK after a few more political cycles.
[+] [-] yrro|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|2 years ago|reply
In any case wider roads should be built if only to accomodate decent cycle lanes, which is also something touted as the way forward.
[+] [-] marcus_holmes|2 years ago|reply
Maybe the UK needs less roads?
[+] [-] stuaxo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mihaaly|2 years ago|reply
It is not the SUVs and EVs that caused this problem but decades of ignorance towards building a suitable and proper system that fits the conditions of Britain.
[+] [-] DrScientist|2 years ago|reply
A lot of new large cars are not only large ( taller and wider ), but have a tendency to have privacy type glass. This means if you are in a traditionally sized car behind you can't see much of the road ahead.
Driving in a busy city, the lack of visibility of what's happening beyond the car ahead is very disconcerting.
Solution? Get a bigger car yourself, with a higher driving position.
[+] [-] bowsamic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baz00|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RetroTechie|2 years ago|reply
“We don’t need electric windows. In the 1970s, face-level vents were introduced, so the reason for having windows has largely gone away. And why do we need motor-powered seats? Most people don’t move their seat. All these creature comforts that we hardly ever use add weight.”
Go back to essentials, and you can shed a looott of weight (and size, too. Besides cost & environmental footprint).
That's the heart of the problem. The phenomenon described in the article is just one of many symptoms of this. And we (or our governments) are not addressing the root problem as strongly as needed.
Expect things to get worse before they get better.
[+] [-] monooso|2 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66787168
[+] [-] rjh29|2 years ago|reply
My region's water company has paid huge fines for dumping sewage, which are invested in improving natural water quality...
[+] [-] vkoskiv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ndsipa_pomu|2 years ago|reply
The road damage from EVs hardly matters compared to HGVs, buses and the biggest vehicles. Road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of weight, so cars aren't responsible for most of it. This can be verified by looking at bus stops and invariably the road surface is damaged by the bus stopping and starting there. A similar effect can be seen at traffic lights.
[+] [-] fomine3|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_w|2 years ago|reply
On that basis, what would be wrong with the combination of encouraging (electric?) motorbikes while also making changes to road furniture to improve motorbike safety?
[+] [-] timeon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gampleman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] happymellon|2 years ago|reply
1. We have oversized articulated lorries running down smaller village roads. The ones that are extra tall, that we didn't have 20 years ago and which also damage trees. Other locations seem to do better with rules barring them from coming off the main motorways.
2. The local council has been defunded by central government, who also tries to take more locally raised money central for pet projects in London. As such we don't have the cash for road repairs. There are a lot of patch jobs these past couple of years that don't last, the roads need proper resurfacing. I see a lot of EVs around here, and I don't know what it's like in Czechia but the additional weight of the EVs are only making it worse when compounded with the other problems.