- Drivers with wider cars struggle to park in narrow spaces and often lack confidence.
- A city council in the UK will spend £1 million ($1.2 million) widening car park slots.
- Experts say that one reason cars are getting wider is improved side impact protection.
Are cars getting too fat? If you were to ask the staff of Carscoops, the chances are the resounding answer would be an emphatic “yes.” Many of us miss the days of smaller, lighter, and more nimble offerings. We’ve all seen pictures of the original Mini parked next to the latest offering or, as in our lead image, the first-generation Porsche 911 alongside its more modern counterpart. Even an E39 5-Series from thirty years ago looks minuscule compared to the latest from Bavaria.
We could argue for days on end over the reasons why cars have grown in size. Safe to say, it centers around the need to satisfy consumers’ demand for more space, the requirement to improve safety with lots more sheet metal, and the designers’ desire to follow the trend of “bigger is better.”
Read: Korea To Ban Fully Charged EVs From Parking Garages After Massive EQE Blaze
But the ever-expanding dimensions of modern machinery are posing a problem for drivers and authorities in Colchester, UK. The result is the City Council’s newly announced £1 million ($1.2 million approx) plan to avoid fat-shaming new cars.
Parking Lot Problems
Yes, it’s an issue that perhaps many of you have already faced: the size of parking lot slots just doesn’t cut it. In the UK in particular — a country less used to having to accommodate full-sized SUVs or pickups — the slots are narrower than ideal for girthier modern cars.
Speaking to BBC News, Martin Goss, portfolio holder for neighborhood services of the Colchester City Council, highlighted the issues. “Many of our city center parking bays are underused simply because they are too narrow for modern vehicles,” he said.
The upgrades will be seen at the city’s St Mary’s and St John’s car parks. In addition to improving the payment systems, CCTV, and lighting, the car park bays will be widened, giving car drivers the extra confidence that their vehicles will fit.
RAC Blames Safety
One of the reasons why cars are getting wider is due to improvements in safety. “The problem centers on modern vehicles being wider due to the introduction of side impact protection technology,” Simon Williams, a spokesperson from the RAC, noted.
Williams lamented that wider cars pose an intriguing problem when it comes to car park operators. Where space is already restricted, the requirement to repaint bays could be complex. However, there is a need, as well, for drivers or passengers with mobility issues to be accommodated.
For now, it’s a costly exercise for Colchester City Council. However, with a tender scheduled shortly and a target completion date of 2026, there’s little the car park operators can do but move with the times of ever-growing vehicles.
