To think levying additional charges on SUV owners in London is a bad idea?

[FirmNavyCat]

Saw this article in the Guardian yesterday and it's been prominent in my mind since I read it. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/13/suv-drivers-could-face-extra-charges-for-driving-in-london

Sadiq Khan is talking about levying further charges to SUV drivers due to the evidence that they pose a significantly increased risk of fatal injury to pedestrians in collisions, particularly children. While on the face of it this seems like a noble cause, my belief is that policymakers should be focused on beefing up existing laws. Speed limits should be reduced on roads that have the highest number of fatalities, and drivers who cause injury or death should face tougher sentencing by the courts. I know SUVs are popular on MN (and are popular with mums in urban areas generally). They feel so much safer to drive compared to smaller cars. Also, should the worst happen and you are involved in a collision, I would very strongly prefer to be in an SUV than a smaller car. I'd want my loved ones to be in an SUV as well if I had to choose.

He is looking to do something to reduce the number of such vehicles in the city he is mayor of. Commercial vehicles are necessary to keep the economy working, Chelsea tractors to take little Tarquin and Araminta to school aren't so one is practical target, the other isn't.

Some areas the majority of cars parked on the road are SUV's and yes this is more wealthy areas (that interestingly have more roads blocked off as they do not want too much traffic in the area).

A VW Golf would be adequate for vast majority of these families. But it just doesn't hold that same status

Picking up a point I have made on threads about parking I suggest that there should be bans on overnight parking for vehicles over a certain size unless they have a permit or are there while the driver is working nearby

A VW Golf would be adequate for vast majority of these families. But it just doesn't hold that same status.

Sddbdbd's comment at 17.15 yesterday sums it up for me 'deal with and pull over' she may as well have said grovel to me peasant. Who has the right of way is not decided by how big the vehicle is.

US photo but it applies here too.

Both SUVs

and we are all just jealous was a later response 🙄

Poppycock.

A child stepping out into the road from behind a high-sided parked car in front of a high-bonneted behemoth, even one moving slowly, isn't going to be visible to the driver until after they've been squashed. I see near misses every single day outside my children's primary school from drivers who clearly aren't setting out to hurt their kids' classmates. A child who has wondered in front of a parked SUV to retrieve a ball could easily do it while the driver is buckling up her seatbelt, putting some music on, or - with grim inevitability - deactivating all the safety systems because they don't work properly - is still going to get hit. This type of low-speed thing is called a frontover accident and is a serious problem in road safety, particularly the US where SUVs are even more common than here: the blind spot of something like a Cadillac Escalade is the thick end of 20 feet.

As for ADAS systems: most people turn them off, and radar-based ones can't detect pedestrians in front of large solid objects like rows of parked cars. Camera/IR based ones are better, but the technology is still far from perfect and it only became mandatory in Europe when GSR2 came into effect in July 2024. Prior to that, only about a third of new cars in EU, UK, US, Japan and China had ADAS fitted.

as well as all the safety and space concerns listed, another serious issue which almost everyone ignores is the weight of these vehicles and therefore their contribution to the continually decreasing state of the roads. Yes EVs (including my own) are also very heavy, even small ones. Personally I believe the weight of vehicles as well as their emissions should be taken into account when paying Vehicle Excise Duty to encourage smaller, lighter and greener cars .

Also, it boggles the mind how much congestion these vehicles create, especiallyif there's only one person int he them. How many cycling commuters could you fit in the same space? Probably at least 8. Or 2/3 smaller cars.

I live in London and frequently drive down a narrow road that is nonetheless absolutely full of traffic and a main route to one of the bridges that cross the river (so not really avoidable). It also has a bus route that connects two places not connected by any other bus. Two normal sized cars travelling in opposite directions can fit down it easily at the same time. If one is an SUV it becomes a lot trickier and with some of the really huge ones it is impossible. I never pull over for giant SUVs if I can avoid it and genuinely enjoy forcing them to pull in. Their drivers are horrible entitled arseholes in the main, judging by their driving behaviour.

If you have bought a car that is too wide to fit down one half of one of the main roads where you live, it is you who should be inconvenienced not me in my small practical city car. I always pull over for buses and delivery vans though. They're performing a useful function. SUVs are not.

If people want an SUV, they can have one. I believe in consumer choice and a free market.

In 2024 just under 500 pedestrians died from traffic collisions. It's a tragedy, but I don't think all deaths were from SUVs. And they shouldn't be banned at all

The proposal isn't to ban them, it's just to tax them to make them a less appealing option. They will fall out of fashion at some point and something else will become the must have thing. Hopefully the next status symbol will be something more suited to a road plan that was laid out in medieval times and a tax will hasten that along as appears to have been the case in Paris.

If people want an SUV, they can have one. I believe in consumer choice and a free market.

If one chooses to go "fuck you" to everyone else they really ought to expect to be taxed punitively. It's still their choice though.

Good explainer here
https://www.transportenvironment.org/te-united-kingdom/articles/cars-are-getting-too-big-for-british-roads-new-research-shows

So interesting. Thanks.

The width of a car that can safely park on the road according to that is 180cm. I drive a Ford Fiesta which is really quite a lot smaller than nearly every other car around. It's 173cm wide.

Why punitive? I don't see the issue at all.

Are you against compact crossover SUVs as well?

You don't see the issue in behaviours which are a risk to others but not to you? You don't see the legitimacy of using the tax system to change people's behaviour for the public good?

Are you for real?

Presumably you don't see the issue because you are the one driving the monstrosity that everyone else has to get out of the way of. As I said in my first post I'm rural not London so this won't help me but I've already had 2 wing mirrors smashed off by huge SUVs when I was pulled over to the very edge of the road. If I was feeling selfish I'd be against a city SUV tax because when Londoners decide to get shot of them they will migrate to the countryside like none ULEZ compliant vehicles did.

All drivers should drive safely and follow the highway code. All cars pose some risk to pedestrians and other road users.

We have a new Sportage and live in London. Should we not be allowed to have it?

I'm not in London, but I do have a kiddy-on SUV. That's because I am disabled, and getting in and out of a higher up car is so much easier for me. This is the first car I've had of this type, and I went for one of the smallest on the market, that was available to me at the time (I bought outright on the used car market.) There's a lot of my type of car purchased or leased for the disabled market. There is a real gap in the market for smaller cars, which are higher up; we don't all need a beast!

I drive my Mum's, and my best friend's smaller cars (Fiat 500/Corsa), and I realise how threatening so many of these SUVs feel - you struggle to see past/over them, and it's also a problem with the lights shining right into your face.
I live and drive in Edinburgh, and the traffic is busy, especially with a lot of bikes around some of the areas I drive in. It must be really hard to see past them.

I'm uber aware of these challenges, and it wouldn't surprise me if a similar charge was discussed around SUVs in Edinburgh. There are huge numbers of (seemingly) vanity purchases of Range Rovers, G-Wagons, etc. As an aside, there's a fair amount of money in Edinburgh, and if you can afford one of these for the Waitrose run, you can afford an additional charge!

As I explained to you yesterday, accidents can still happen. An easy way to save lives is to discourage the use of, or even ban, vehicles which have attributes which are especially dangerous to pedestrians. For passenger cars, this means high bonnets, as found on SUVs. Do you not understand this simple point?

I should say that my smallish pretend SUV is a Fiat 500L. Very boxy, and not long. About the same size as my old Astra (which I had for 12 years, so I'm not a serial swapper/wanting to flood the market), but it's higher up.

Accidents will always happen with all cars. It's an unfortunate consequence of having motor vehicles in the first place.

Are we not allowed to drive our Sportage then?

In 2024, 409 pedestrians were killed in Great Britain. This as always is very sad, but I don't see it as a reason to ban SUVs.

What a lot of hysterical sanctimonious attitudes here about “giant” and “huge” SUVs. Someone just suggested you could fit two or 3 smaller cars in the space occupied. Utter nonsense. We have a polo and an x5. 25 cm difference in width, 85cm on the length. Last time I looked both models are perfectly legal to own and drive in this free country. And yes, I live in London.

In addition to those deaths, 18,767 pedestrians were injured, 5,823 seriously. Anything we can do to reduce these injuries and deaths, and the impact on their loved ones of those injured and killed, is to be welcomed. Now, we know that SUVs and crossovers are especially dangerous to pedestrians. This is because they are taller, and ride higher, which gives them a higher bonnet. These do more damage to human bodies, because they strike them in the head or upper body, which contains the vital organs. So, all we need to do is switch back to lower cars, which work just as well in urban settings as SUVs, and we can prevent injuries and deaths.

The point of the thread is not to ban ownership but to disincentivise ownership by taxing the SUVs until the pips squeak

I reckon it’s a great idea
People who do still own them and don’t think of others will finally get a financial
penalty (admittedly it probably won’t even touch the sides, but it is a good start)