To wonder why we allow the sale of so many cars that don't fit a standard space?

[Bussesrus]

We are looking for a new car that will fit all 6 of us plus our dogs. Having looked at many options just about everything with a third row and boot space will hang over into another space by anything from .2 to nearly a meter. Where exactly are you meant to park these SUVs and vans?

@Hungrycaterpillarsmummy This would be DH! He isn't remotely worried. We do live rurally and he's both a cyclist and the driver of an SUV.

I do think Pp are right about not all countryside being equal. I live in the foothills of the highlands and we get proper snow here. The council doesn’t snowplough/ grit our road till 9:30 ish. School buses don’t run in the snow. If you want to get to work and drop dc off then a heavier car, snow tyres and 4wd are all pretty useful.

Heavyweight boxer Frank Bruno drove a Mini Metro, bless him.

Tiny cars are fine for one big driver. They aren't fine at all for hauling big passengers plus dogs plus cargo. My brother is 6'5 and he drove a mini when he was younger but now it would kill his back so he drives an SUV.

I remember trying to explain to my ex wife that people didnt move into the country and drive into work in the 1930's because cars were too expensive, slow, unreliable and the roads were not much cop so it really wasnt practical.

Also, unless you were wealthy landowners, country life in the 1930s just wasn’t that comfortable. There was no mains electricity and even the wealthy would have to rely on generators which frequently broke down. No central heating, just fireplaces in every room which had to be cleaned out every day. No running hot water. And very few people had cars. But now, country life is very comfortable indeed and people want to have the best of both worlds - lucrative job in the city and home in the country.

Why not drive an estate rather than an SUV- that is the thing I don’t understand. Inside they are as big so lower so safer for pedestrians. They are also more Aerodynamic so more effort and lighter so better for road wear and tear.

@Drfosters There's no third row and we don't all fit.

Why are you asking why someone lives rurally? There are an awful lot of us who are born and brought up in rural places, do you think we should all move to cities and only farmers allowed to stay?

I have what is classed as a small car but it's still the length of most parking spaces around here. The village where I live is surrounded by lanes the width of 1 car, it's not so bad now the majority of tourists have gone back up country but is a pain when busy.

I don't like SUVs, would rather have an estate if I needed more room than I have now.

One of the few non 4x4 cars we have owned was a beautiful estate car. Rover 75. Long, sleek, powerful cruising engine for on motorways, it was actually a much nicer car than one of the Jaguar models it resembled. We did tow caravan with it, but never a horsebox. It seemed awful shoving dogs into big boot space at the time, mud, dust and hair. Took ages to clean out. We took it camping one year, and it didn’t like the wet grass, was sliding all over. Much as we loved it, we knew it was going to be a nightmare in Winter, so we traded it for the very last LR model we owned. Bikes had to go on roof as well. It was too long for most parking spaces as well.

Loads of people park their massive cars across two spaces these days so people will think you are a twat if you do but you won’t stand out as there is a sea of them 😁 I hate car parks in general as most spaces are very small even if you are in a small car - very tight bends, concrete pillars everywhere if they are multi-storey, making disabled and family spaces the same ones so there isn’t enough of them to go round etc etc.

I live in a fairly big town and if only you could live your life and also be able to walk or take public transport to the places you need to go!

I meant your brother. I don’t understand why people pick SUVs when estates would do the job much better. And they are slightly smaller externally so fit into spaces better.

This is a ridiculous response. You do realise the countryside services the rest of the country with regard to food production and many other requirements and services? Also that people will live where there are homes to buy?.

Of course I realise that. Do you think everyone who lives rurally is employed rurally? Or that homes are always cheaper in the country? They are often not because people from elsewhere want to live rurally and price locals out of the market.

Men absolutely do worry about shit like this. If we're going to go for overly broad generalisations, men as a group spend more time talking about cars than women do.

When I was looking for a new car one of the important criteria was to make sure that it was smaller than my old one because parking is such a pain in the tits. I'm not the only one in my group of friends to have done this either.

The roads near me are single track and some unsurfaced. No issue with bigger cars swiping wing mirrors as there’s only room for one car. Vehicles generally need to be 4x4 too to make some of the unsurfaced roads, especially in winter. Agree that some people don’t know how to drive bigger vehicles though.

Slap bang in the middle of the pavement, or alternatively on the grass verge leaving massive tyre marks it would appear 🙄

There are lots of small cars available. Yet people insist on buying huge SUVs and then complain about parking!

We have a 7 seater Ford Galaxy it has 3 rows and fits into a normal space. Maybe check it out. We have the older model.

Parking is a huge challenge for many. Regardless of car size.

Nextdoornightmares, supermarkets deliver now

Given that I actually live in the countryside, and have done for several decades, I think I know rather a lot about it, thanks.

Oh we do, believe me we do.

I find the parking spaces too narrow for my Fiat500. I don't want yet MORE ground & public space allocated for cars to use up, though.

Problem with the huge cars (Nissan Patrol etc) is they don't fit when driving on the roads, either. As a cyclist, so often I am delayed by cars that have to go slowly or wait for each other because they are too big for the road. I might get past but later the driver gets impatient because they can't overtake me (again, too wide, and the cars coming the other way are too wide, too). Most these huge vehicles have precisely 1 occupant when I observe them.

I think this is because there is an implicit assumption that these vehicles wouldn't be available for purchase if we didn't have the infrastructure facilities etc to accommodate them.
In other words we are assuming that the country is well-run, that there is joined up thinking, that the left hands DOES know what the right hand is doing and they are both working together. 🤪

Sweden.
Their spaces are for huge Volvos : you would have got two of our Renault fives in one of them when we visited.
Sorry, an answer but not much help to you, I know.