If you buy a massive 4×4 SUV...

[bravefox]

... to ask you to practise parking it in a single space? Saturday afternoon in the town multistorey and the number of huge cars parked half in a second space is 🤯

I've just read the article. 161 were too long. None were wider than 240cm.

Even something as gigantic as an imported GMC Yukon is only 205 cm wide. So it would still fit in a UK 1070s space without having to straddle 2 spaces

Really? What a narrow perspective. I find being judgemental about people you don’t know says far more about a person than the type of transport they choose.

Fucking ridiculous for city dwellers to have these wanky child killing machines.

It's the only car with a big enough boot to carry my child's wheelchair and walking frame without me having to spend hlf an hour dismantling/building them every time we get in and out of the car.

If you have one, I judge you.

Let me guess, you don't mean me right? 🙄 because you'd have no looking from the outside

The ones driving SUV while living in the city are all the same. Ignorant, selfish and not interesting. Anecdotal evidence ofcourse but I've yet to meet a SUV owner to prove the contrary.

I’m not sure how that justifies sneering at people who buy cars on finance.

And for many people who drive a RR it really doesn't matter to them, financially, if it does depreciate.

Psst, Rachel Reeves: SUV tax 😉

Again, levying a hefty tax on SUVs probably won't really be an issue to most of the owners.

YANBU at all. We’ve got a VW Touareg, it is a total beast (but fits our 3 lanky teenagers comfortably in the back - and is brilliant for uni runs.) Always park it v carefully.

I look for spaces next to where smaller cars are already parked, as it is so wide!

Yep I don't understand people buying SUVs because they "need a big boot", they've got shit bootspace.

Mine doesn't. It's over 900l of bootspace. More importantly, it has the height that the sloping boot that estate cars doesn't.

The only comparable non SUV for boot size and height was the VW Touran. Unfortunately it wasn't available to us when we replaced our car.

Ah, not unless their choices affect me

Quite. It doesn't make financial sense to pump £100K of your cash into buying an SUV outright. Much more sensible to keep that £100K cleverly invested and making you more money.

I remember seeing a video where they tested how many little children lined up behind the car it would take for an SUV driver to be able to see them out of the rearview mirror. I can't remember the exact answer, maybe +. Even the driver was totally shocked and said they didn't realise their view was so hampered that they wouldn't be able to see small children stood behind their car, even if they checked the mirror before reversing.

Did they do the test with an estate car? Or those smaller cars with tiny back windows you can't see out of?

My car beeps if anyone farts within a 2 mile radius of the car, back, front and side.. With that and the reversing camera, I'm not running in to anyone

@Lemsipper

you cannot have a food baby everyday surely? If so, you might wanna re- evaluate a few things…

In the UK we use design standards that allow for the manoeuvres to do both but it’s recommended to reverse in for pedestrian safety and not to stop your car getting damaged.

Ive only used car parks in the US in and around Norman,Oklahoma and Dallas ( not in big cities ) and they were (I seem to remember ) all angled. People just drove straight in and out. I don’t recall anyone reversing in……
I assumed they didn’t reverse because their cars are ( or were then ) so huge!

Its definitely quicker to park at an angle. From my personal experience in the US they would park at the supermarket, do a bit of shopping then get in the car to cross the road in the car to park opposite to go to a pet store…..repeat for every other shop. However, as I say, this was small town, lots of land in Norman. So I suppose quick parking is important if you’re getting in and out of your car a lot.

Angled parking in England is a lot rarer. I don’t know why. Perhaps because we have less land and are trying to squeeze as many cars in as possible. I’ve never designed a car park layout that way as I always have to squeeze as many in as possible.

no I don't leave the lights on or engine running luckily my heaters stay on when the cars in eco mode! but I usually park up the top end of a car park with full view of all the people with shit parking..... I don't really have excitement in my life as you can tell 😂

Agree @BoredZelda
Or a white van
Or a school minibus
Or………

Emissions on the biggest models tend to be about 20% higher than smaller SUVs and cars. They all run on various combinations of petrol and ethanol, just as in the UK, and electric vehicles are getting more popular.

Most vehicles can use E10, some can use E15, and a few E85. I drive a PZEV SUV (partial zero emissions vehicle), and I see lots on the roads, as well as a lot of flex fuel vehicles (E85 fueled). I've noticed a lot of newer electric vehicles that are really big - really large SUVs (Rivian, Hummer, and more) and also E-trucks. However, I live in a well to do suburban area where people tend to spend money on newer tech, and there are several payg public charging stations. There are hundreds of Teslas tooling around local streets.

Same. My RR goes to Defcon 2 if there's so much as an empty fag packet in the rear view camera.

Me neither. Good news about the lights.

I had to stop myself taking a photo of the most spectacularly badly parked car I'd seen recently in my supermarket car park. Do you video the idiots? I bet there's a YouTube channel/hashtag for that.

I feel you're being slightly disingenuous
I also have a big SUV, it's 218cm wide mirror to mirror, giving me 11cm either side once parked. This is less than the thickness of a door. I have no problem placing it exactly in the middle of a standard parking place. But if I do, and there is similar size car next to me there isn't enough room to open the doors and get out. And that includes the times when everyone else gets out before I park.
So your question should be show me cars where you can get in and out, using a standard 240cm space.

I'm my case I do live miles out in the country, on a farm, I go to the supermarket as infrequently as I possibly can, never at busy periods, and park as far away from the shop as I possibly can, in the quiet empty bit. So it never causes me a problem.

But cars have got bigger, and that is just not going to change any time soon.

I agree. But not everybody who lives in the country has a horse! (And I was born and brought up in the country.)

Agree but with councils having no money the last thing they are thinking about is repairing our little country side roads.
Sometimes I think I’d be better off in a tank trying to get down some of our lanes
Low slung cars definitely wouldn’t make it without getting damaged

I've seen a few notices in public car parks that if you're not parked neatly between the lines you may be fined.

Most people who live in the country don't have massive cars. Most SUV drivers don't live on steep unmade tracks.

Most people who genuinely live in rural areas (and not suburbia) only rarely drive into city centres simply because it takes ages and there are smaller towns closer.