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.

If purely safety drove the rich urban mum fashion for SUVs you would see just as many driving Volvo estates.

She most likely would not have killed those children if she was driving a smaller car, like Golf. It would not have enough force to go through the fence. It was a five minute drive from a golf course to the house, she could have walked.
All research says that when hit by a lower car the body rolls off to the side of the vehicle so the likelyhood of injury to major organs is lower. If hit by a high SUV, the body gets dragged under the car, with a much higher probability of the fatality. London's streets are small and narrow, those vehicles make driving in London more inconvenient and unsafe for pedestrians.

Yabu. They are not "safer" if you factor in the risk of living for the rest of your life with the knowledge that you killed someone. In the event of a serious RTA which you survive due to being in an SUV, the fact that you were in an SUV probably caused the deaths of the other people involved. And there's much more chance of being in an RTA that would never have had much chance of being fatal if all vehicles were nom-SUV, being at generally lower urban speeds, but the fact that you were driving an SUV increased the momentum and therefore a pedestrian or cyclist dies whowould have survived otherwise.

About 11% of RTA fatalities are car occupants in cities while about 55% of car-miles driven are in urban areas - you are pretty safe just from being in a car at all, you don't need to additionally turn your car inti a death trap for others.

The vast majority of vehicle-occupant fatalities in <30mph collisions are where neither driver was paying due care and attention and there were car occupants not wearing their seat belts. Buying anSUV is the least effective step you can take to protect your family and if you do you are increasing the risks for other vulnerable people which is a pretty shitty thing to do.

Absolutely the right thing to tax them more harshly. Tax is a very appropriate way to discourage behaviour that isn't illegal but is unethical, antisocial, and liable to create a higher burden to the nhs.

@user2207

I don’t know what speed she was at when crashing? Do you? Small cars crashing into dc can also result in death, a lot depends on speed. Which is why we have 20mph limits

Obviously if she had walked then nothing would have happened.

I am just questioning how many actual deaths there are by SUVs in London.

An awful lot of older people I know have SUVs for mobility reasons and the fact it’s better for visibility.

If it’s about safety why not ban them?

Why not tax them in other cities?

Cardiff is making moves about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04gpp4w0rdo

I can't wait until they are banned and everyone is forced to drive a car not a ridiculous tank.

They are too big for our roads, they are too heavy for car parks, they are dangerous, they are environmentally terrible for the sheer size of them even if they are electric and idiots are incapable of parking them considerately and they think they are entitled to bully everyone else on the road because they feel safe in their tank so are happy with driving in a more aggressive and risky manner.

No one needs these monsters apart from for their egos.

I genuinely can't overstate just how much I despise SUVs and the attitude of their drivers.

Re visibility.

I deliberately buy a car I can see out of. I hate cars with poor visibility. You do not need to buy an SUV to have visibility. Indeed they have less visibility in certain areas.

No, it's a great idea. Horrible bloated metal monsters.

@RedToothBrush all my older relatives love the Qashqui because they are higher up.

SUVs are the most popular car type, I am just not sure that is going to change.

I live in London and drive an electric SUV (on the smaller side). I have a back problem that means I need a car I step up into rather than be down to get into. I have yet to find another style of car that allows this. I have zero interest in how I am perceived or my car being any kind of status symbol.

Yes I’ve always found it weird when people say SUV’s have better visability. I have a very low car and being lower to the ground gives me far greater visability of this around me as I am on their level. I test drove an SuV a while ago to see what the fuss as about and I found it much harder to see stuff around me as I couldn’t judge the width and the length of the car and couldn’t see if something was in front of my bonnet as easily. A child could have run in front of the car and not be visible I was so high up.

I had a Volvo estate & a few years ago changed to an XC40 which is shorter and much easier to park.

I miss the boot space though, could buy whatever furniture I wanted on gumtree or ebay!

I do not know the speed exacty as I do not think police has released this information. It could not have been that high if you know the area where it happened - it just a few meters between the exit from the car park to the school fence. The car was heavy enough to crash through a fence, then slowed down and then sadly crashed into the group of children a few meters further.
I appreciate that some people might need a higher large vehicles but most people do not. SUV in south west London is a status symbol, they are way too big for the parking spaces on the streets and in the shopping centres, many streets are narrow so two cars can't pass each other. People are worried for children to walk to school therefore are driving them around. They do create more problems in the city than they solve.

@user2207 I do know the area, I went to school in Wimbledon myself. I just think we can’t say with any certainty that a smaller car would have resulted in zero deaths because as you say we do not know the details.

I agree that some SUVs are a status symbol. But there are many that are not and as I said it’s the most popular car type.

I don’t worry about my dc walking to school in London and they do. Tbh during the school run traffic is a slow crawl. I also don't think there are lots of child pedestrians getting killed by cars in London, if there was then as I said why not ban them?

Do you really think the people who can afford the Range Rovers etc will be put off by a tax?

Shame more children don t cycle to school in london

Not everyone, of course, same as there are plenty of people paying congestion charge in the city centre, but I support any steps, including those impacting public perception, that encourage smaller cars on the roads which will make the roads safer.
Many children are barely visible behind some of those cars, although old enough to walk by themselves. But a combination of narrow pavements and those vehicles make me (and many parents) very uncomfortable. Unfortunately same parents often buy those vehicles because the children are "safer" inside of them.

I think cycling to school in London can be more difficult due to the distances many dc have to cover. My dc have a 10 min cycle without any main roads whereas I would have had a 35 minute one on main roads with buses, HGVs etc

Would help if people could actually drive them to start with and not like maniacs

@user2207 but car seat changes have impacted the width/size of cars.

Personally I would prefer if they enforced the 20 mph speed limits. The closing of school roads has definitely made a difference at our primary in terms of congestion.

I just don’t believe this proposal will have any impact on safety and it’s just a tax.

Cycling so much easier where I live in London than driving. Faster. Easier. Cheaper.

Loads more people now cycles with kids too.

ETA we border zone 1/2

As I remember, most car seats fit most cars, there are enough car seats that fit Toyota Aygo:).
SUVs are needed in some circumstances and some driving environments, but these are not densely built up areas with narrow streets. @dastardlydani I think we will have to respectfully agree to disagree on this topic.

As in child car seats?- I’d say not quite. Safety features in cars have necessitated cars getting wider to accommodate them which is obviously a good thing. Either you pinch that space from the cabin resulting in very tight 3 across the back or even puts the cars down to 2 across the back or you widen the cars accordingly to keep 3 adult size seats along the back. The selling point of the SUV’s is often the 2 adults, 3 children, big boot and comfort and so the large size is the reason the buy them. Gone are the days when a family would be crammed into a tiny hatchback and driven 3 hours across country (well that was my childhood anyway!)

Who needs one in most of the UK! Most people near us (nowhere near London) who have them, do so because of image. I did hear one parebt say 'oh mines a necessity ! I couldn't do without it!' when discussing their cars.
She doesn't work where it would be necessary, does school drop off pick up (2 kids), and drives to the supermarket .

Very few people NEED one.

They are horrible vehicles and I’d be glad to see the back of them. It annoys me when people say they need them. No - you want one and that is a very different thing.