To welcome Cardiff Council's proposed higher parking charges for larger/heavier cars

[LlynTegid]

Cardiff council are planning to have higher parking charges for larger/heavier vehicles (so including most SUVs). I welcome this, wish it was the case everywhere, though a second best option to the separate driving test I would prefer.

AIBU to welcome this?

Unfair IMO. Tall tax.

6 foot 7 husband and teen son
6 foot 2 teen daughter
me 6 ft

Yes, our family car is an suv (skoda). What else are we all going to fit in when I'm driving (I'm the main driver)?

What are calling a ‘larger’ car here?
Is it all SUVs?

VW Tiguan?
Range Rover?
Landrover Defender?
ok, maybe.

what about a Kia Sportage?
a Renault Captur?
Nissan Juke?

Who is this actually aimed at?

Just looking at new vehicle kerb weights...

All the range rover sports, landrover defenders etc are already under the 2400kg limit in most configurations....

My tesla model Y is 2003kg....

Surely this is only going to affect vans / work vehicles and the truly massively excessive cars - even a lamborghini urus is only just 2400kg, whereas the Rolls royce cullinan is 2750kg (although if you can pay £400k for a car you probably aren't paying for a resident permit)

I don't give a shit.

• I don't live in Cardiff
• My EV weighs less than the limit
• I don't need a parking permit

It’s a Welsh motoring policy. Bound to be daft!

It weighs 50% more than the original

Citroen Berlingo

Well what did your husband fit into 10 years ago?

Whereas the safety of the driver and family of the smaller car you hit is of no interest. Perhaps SUV drivers should sit a CPC test the way bus and lorry drivers have to.

I can see this from a council point of view and it's all to do with cost. Road damage is directly linked to the weight of a vehicle. Standard cars do almost road damage, HGVs on the other hand do hundreds times more damage. With bigger cars and electric cars often bring 2+ times the weight of a standard mid to small combustion powered car they will see increased council costs.
The one thing no one seems to answer is the issue with multi stories. With the government push to electric cars, most multistorey car parks will start collapsing under the additional weight and that's going to end up costing billions to retrofit and reinforce the carparks. They have already had to do one in my local area!

Just going to leave this from the Onion here.

I belonged to a gym for a while. Let's call it David Lloyd, as that was its name.

When I returned to the car park after exercising, I regularly used to lose my 2015 VW Polo between two metal behemoths!

I support this, not sure about electric cars though. My DH is also very tall and fits nicely in a golf and always has so do think that’s a good argument.

Gridlock is caused by traffic which is made of cars

Doesn't cardiff have a train station?

That’s interesting about the refit. I’ve known about the car park issue for a while, but it’s never seen to be discussed locally even though we do have a couple of 50 year old car parks in the area that could potentially be affected.

Our county council is actually urging people to buy big 4x4s, instead of small compact ones.

They haven't actually published this policy, but it's clear as day from their complete lack of interest in repairing any of the horrendous huge potholes - and then by adding ridiculously high speed bumps right next to them that scrape the exhaust of our 25yo little car, no matter how slowly you go over them.

It's not such a bargain buying small cars that are cheaper (or more likely a bit less expensive) to park, if you just more than lose it all again in extra repair costs.

It's in a poor location

All of them?

Cardiff has at least six train stations which are central. Plus all the others further out.

Go on then...

Name me an EV that is 2x the weight of its petrol equivalent....

The closest I've found so far is a fiat 500 Vs the 500e 900kg Vs 1350kg... So 50% heavier. The bigger the car, generally the smaller the difference.... The BMW iX is almost the exact same weight as the BMW X5 m50

The original? That's a 50 year old car, of course it does.

A 20 year old fiesta weighs only 50kg more than a final model year 2023 fiesta.

I can't believe someone has cited America as something to work towards. You can't walk anywhere in lots of places, there are no pavements. We need less cars not more. My friends have to drive their kids half ample to school then queue 20 mins to drop them off, that's just insane!

The death rate amongst SUV occupants in collisions is higher that normal sized vehicles as they are unstable and more prone to roll over

If I book a ferry the cost is partly based on size so why not apply the same to parking?