Why do people drive big cars they can’t manage?

New Full Fat Range Rovers, and X5’s (I would assume the other big names too) can park themselves though? Drive themselves on motorways, slam on brakes if they mistake a wheelie bin for a pedestrian. Even the worst driver should be ok.

Bastard to park 😆 🤣 😂

My car is tiny but still a bastard to park. It’s ancient so no power steering and if the roof is down I can’t see anything behind me. The massive by comparison camper van I had previously was much easier to park.

I did have a chuckle to myself the other day though. I parked up at the local retail park as I needed to return a pair of shoes. Had just got out my car and a woman arrived in a huge Mitsubishi Outlander and for reasons only known to her, decided to try and park in in between my car and another one despite the car park being fairly empty. I’d walked to the shop, returned my shoes and got back to my car before she’d managed to get into the space. Then she could barely get out because the spaces are too small for such big cars.

How does that make it their husbands car though?

We have a tiny car and a medium sized car because of all the places where bigger cars are a pain in the arse, i.e. car parks with tiny spaces, narrow country lanes, etc. Neither car is mine nor his. We just take the most appropriate car for the journey. DH ends up driving the tiny one more because he goes to places with tiny parking spaces, but I'd take it if I was driving to work because my work parking space is a very narrow drive and I wouldn't want the big car being scratched or dented by idiot neighbours barging their wheel barrows or wheelie bins by it (as they did with one of our previous cars!). Neither of us have problems parking/reversing either of them and we're both 60 so hardly spring chickens any more.

I live rurally too, and you're bang on. I find it's always the arrogant bloke who will just barge through in the RR. I was going to buy one but I've been put off by cost of maintaining it, but also its reputation for tossers driving them - bit like Audis.

My ancient Aygo is pretty much as competent rurally as the Q7 I sometines drive. Weighing nothing with skinny tyres is actually an advantage on rough tracks.

Yes, this! I saw a RR driver trying to squeeze into a space in a multi storey car park. They obviously misjudged the space and scraped the side of a concrete bollard. She then reversed too far and bumped into another car. I kid you not. I have to admit it made me chuckle when I quickly and effortlessly parked my old mini 😅. I know I'll be accused of schadenfreude!

Why do people drive big cars they can’t manage?

The same reason people have big dogs they can't handle or have more children than they can adequately cater for.

Most people don't think about the practical aspects of their decision or the consequences of their actions. They just do it because it's expected/looks nice/tradition/culture/brand name/status, etc.

Having a 4x4 when you need it to do a job is fine. But I guarantee my work horse estate is muddier and done more off roading than most SUVs and 4x4s I see. But we bought our car for a job, not for looks. People need to buy cars for their lifestyle not how they want to look.

Lots of kids? Get a people carrier. Need space? Get an estate. The amount of SUVs I see with roof boxes is ridiculous, get an estate if you need space.

When we drive rurally we encounter 4x4 drivers who refuse to move onto grassy verges. It’s a 4x4!

4x4 drivers know their cars are too big and park on pavements which really annoys me, get a smaller car.

You remind me of a woman I met when my children were tiny. We were at an NCT coffee morning. I had walked round from the next street with my baby in a pushchair. I asked where she lived. She said the other end of the road we were in which I knew to be a maximum ten minute walk. Oh, that's handy for you, I said. Nice straightforward walk. Oh no, she said, I drove here. I don't like pushing him in the pushchair because then he's at the level of the exhaust pipes on all the cars. I thought but did not say that this was one of the most I'm All Right Jack utterances I'd ever heard. Pollute the air for my child, but keep yours safe? FFS.

I need a big car to fit my wheelchair in.

it’s actually not that big, it’s a Volvo xc90.

i’ve had it 12 years and can park it fine (in blue badge spaces if the car park bothers to have them).

some multi story car parks are a nightmare to get it round though. One near me has such tight corners on the ramps between levels that I need to carefully do a three point thing before getting up the ramp. It’s clearly not just me in that car park as the walls are scraped to shit and have multiple colours of car paint on them.

when I went to Spain a couple of years ago I hired a car and specified wheelchair accessible and they gave me an actual minibus. Now that was a learning experience!

I was too scared to take it into a multi story.

She means Range Rovers.

YABU because of your rampant misogyny. There are just poor male drivers (usually testosterone driven) and you have made huge assumptions about who the car belongs to.

You’re as bad as those dreadful car sales people who talk only to the husband even if it’s the woman driving the car.

Well, you said 'hubby' so YABU 😂. That said, how on earth do you know it's their husband's car? Lots of women in well off families drive huge cars. Remember Chelsea Tractors?

Where I am it’s mainly the older people with the massive cars they can’t manage, I don’t get it

a Family member now has a wheel chair which won’t fit in the boot of my smaller RR so now I need a bigger one

Have not read the whole thread. I can only really comment on London, where I live. There are far too many cars on the roads here and a ridiculously large number of them are great big vehicles designed (in theory) for offroading, which I'd bet hardly any of them ever do. They are often parked on the streets, leaving one narrow lane for all traffic to pass through, which causes congestion. No wonder the roads are permanently full of potholes. The physical weight of these cars must be causing a lot of damage. If I ruled the world they'd be heavily taxed in the hope that it would discourage people from buying them.

It is a bit of an arms race, apologies if I offend anyone with the analogy. People have large cars because others do, so would feel less confident if they had a normal sized car.

I think those who have singled out women as bad drivers are being unfair, of the 25% of all drivers who are unfit to hold a licence, I'd estimate the majority are men because of their conduct on the road or medical reasons. Some of the men because they feel inadequate about a body part of theirs and think women will be impressed by a larger car.

Oh the cars in the USA are ridiculous. Trucks that need a step ladder to jump up into them.

My colleagues are American and they were complaining the other day about the cost of buying a new/used car out there and fuel... they just can't understand that a giant SUV is not necessary or normal!

Honestly, I'm not a great parker... but there's plenty of other things I'm good at that others are shit at. We all have different skill sets.

I'm actually more concerned about the people that rag their cars at 50mph in a 30 zone, or cut you up at speed on a roundabout, or tailgate you for miles because you won't increase your speed to 20mph above the speed limit to satisfy them. That is what should bother you.

Hey some of us are trying out best, just tag me next time 😂

Anyone who drives a Range Rover is a twat in my opinion 😂. Worlds most chavvy, soulless, box shaped cars

They don’t have that problem in the US!

They do not fit there, actually... even their cars are too damn big for many parking lots. That's why you see a lot of cars not parkd within the lines at any supermarket or Target. I borrow my dad's SUV when I'm in USA. It's not one of the big SUVs at all, but it maneuvers terribly and I find the cameras nearly useless because they don't really cover sides well enough.

it's Never an option to hire a reasonable size car using the online USA car rental menus. But One time at Fort Lauderdale when I reached the hire car parking lot, the lady working there said I could actually take out one of their truly small rental cars which was bliss (|!!). Meanwhile at the checkin desk, the rental agencies try hard to upgrade you to stupid size car and I have to scold them not to. Pisses me off so much that it's impossible to hire the type of car I like in USA.

Little known fact: in the absence of other indications, the car going up a hill has priority over the car coming down. Obviously, if you're going uphill and there's a passing place right behind you, and the one for the downhill car is much further away, YABU if you don't reverse.

But in other circumstances I have been known to get out of my car and lean on the bonnet scrolling my phone, just to make it clear that no, I'm not reversing quarter of a mile so you don't have to reverse 50 yards.