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.

Sorry OP, but I hate them also - not against anything that discourages them. They're obnoxiously big, and keep increasing - we passed one parked yesterday which had a front higher than my (not short) 7yo. So I consider them much less safe for pedestrians and cyclists, which is how a lot of us get around in London.

Also pragmatically, I don't understand them. They're enormous, but somehow don't seem to have vastly more interior space. Where does it all go?!?

You appear to be a prime example of that, but one who follows politicians opposed to Khan.

🤭

Not sure the car seat argument stands up. I had a classic mini when DS was a baby and managed to fit both of us, a buggy and a week’s worth of shopping in without any problems.

Cars now are just too big. I’ve parked next to some new ones recently and the bonnet has been bigger than my entire car. Very few people need a monstrosity of that size for a daily vehicle.

I knew before I opened the thread that the OP would never come back.

I would assume there are tens of thousands of them in London, maybe more. The logistics of an outright ban would be a nightmare. It's better to apply a financial disincentive, so that they gradually fall out of favour and are replaced with smaller, less problematic vehicles.

Tax them and invest that money into having more traffic cops who actually catch people who:

• read their phones whilst driving
• speed

The roads near my kids' school are so dangerous as motorists treat them like a race track and no-one ever does anything about it.

I wonder how many readers are aware of why there are so many SUVs on our roads.

Sadly - but interestingly - the idea of "Sports Utility Vehicles" was an unintended consequence of a US move to counter an earlier fuel crisis. Back in 1978 US Congress passed an Act including a "gas-guzzler tax", paid by car manufacturers (passed on to their customers, obviously), aimed at passenger cars with low fuel-efficiency. Trucks and sporting vehicles were exempt; this included SUVs, albeit that these weren't mentioned in the Act itself ... the idea and name, 'SUV', grew popular following this Act, as a means of bypassing the tax on vehicles by classifying them as not ordinary passenger-carrying cars.

... I'm sure you'll be able to fill in the rest of the story. Once the US manufacturers (and those who sold in the US, that is all manufacturers) started selling lots of SUVs in US, of course they wanted to sell the same cars worldwide, even though the tax they were avoiding was unique to US. The cars were being made; they needed to be sold.

Result? Chelsea Tractors, known and loved (/ hated) for their low fuel-efficiency and general impracticality in cities and small countries like Great Britain.

I do sometimes wonder how many of the Mums clogging roads around my grandkids schools with their crazily huge cars have any inkling their thoughts about 'safety' and 'convenience' and all the rest have been sold them along with their choice of transport by tax-dodging American car companies in this way. (Of course, of course, they're not at all influenced by advertising! No, not at all!)

(There was a Friends of the Earth exposé of all this a while ago. Present-day evidence? - Check out www.simple720.com/blog/gas-guzzler-excise-tax-guide )

I'm not in London but I am in Edinburgh and assume the problems are similar, I'd love to see it become an expensive PITA to drive an oversized car.

Id make the on street parking permits a lot more expensive too, as they change a spot that could fit three cars to two so regularly. Same with car parks, have SUV/oversized parking spaces bigger and further away as it's so dangerous to try and pull out from between two of them.

I wonder if these huge monstrosities are a contributing factor to the state of our roads (bloody potholes) ? They do weigh a lot more than a standard car!!

We have a small car and a 4x4, we mainly drive the 4x4 now because the potholes will destroy the small car.

SUVs weight helps to create potholes…

https://www.bodyshopmag.com/2025/news/heavy-cars-cause-potholes-and-should-be-taxed/

20 miles?
You could cycle that. (Especially if there are fewer cars in the road)
Or, forty minutes and the mini isn’t actually that mini these days, as long as there’s no child seat and the passengers in the back aren’t over 5, 10” you can get three in the back.

I live semi rurally, village near a town and drive a focus. I have two kids in car seats, a hugely tall husband and loads of crap eg saddles and bags of feed to transport. I manage fine.
what I really struggle with is visibility when driving. I cannot see round/past or over the stupidly huge cars people feel they need which means I am at greater risk. Also, parking is a nightmare as is driving even regular roads let alone e one lane countryside roads. I also find I am totally dazzled at night by headlights as they are at eyeball level for me rather than below my bonnet as mine are.

suv divers are selfish fuckers

But they don’t though. Modern cars are pretty robust these days. Yes you feel the potholes more in a small car but unless it is a sink hole most potholes won’t bother a modern small car. I drive a small hatch back in London and it manages the thousands of potholes and massive speed bumps just fine. You drive your 4x4 just because it is a smoother ride.

I’m not sure they can reduce speed limits anymore than they have. It’s already only 20 mph which has made a huge difference to accident statistics even though it’s a complete pain in the backside for the people that live and work there have to drive anywhere. One good thing is that it does seem to have improved the flow of traffic a bit in some congested areas.
I agree there is no need for massive car in London unless you are transporting lots of kids and things, but many people have them because they need to drive out of London to other places, for work, for family etc. I think charging more to have one is probably fair as if you have one you are more likely to be able to afford the charge.
weve got a big car because partner needed it as had a 3 hour drive to work and now he has retired we still have it as his parents are at the opposite end of the country, but once they are gone we will have no need for it (I’m saying we, I don’t drive and if it was down to me we’d be getting the train or a domestic flight).

If you live in london could drive no car. They make no potholes

But you don't need a big car to occasionally drive to the other end of the country. I'm almost 400 miles from my Mum and drive a hatch back, Dh and DSs are all 6'3+ so we have out grown a small hatch back but a Focus does the job.

Yeah I am struggling to see the connection between big car needs for long drive. When I was a university I regularly drove 200 odd miles from there to home and back in my little Clio. Was comfy and just fine. Modern cars whatever their size are pretty comfy and can handle motorway driving just fine. When I think back to the 80s and long trips and things sometimes got a bit hairy at 70mph. Had many a journey with us waiting for rescue on the hard shoulder.

I'd take a big carriage over a big car to travel to the other end of the country any day

A really important point.

My dad's job involved driving, he was on the road for hours every day for 40 years. He drove a salon car, as did every other member of the sales team. He must have had 100s of 1000s of miles under his belt (and still chose to drive to away football matches on the weekends and went on holidays based around driving) and he manged just fine without some monsterous SUV. There isn't a car on the market today that isn't perfectly OK on motorways etc. Pre-kids and pre rural move I had a tiny 1l engined city car and still took it from the south East to the Scottish boarders a couple of times a year.

Aye, right. Because all car drivers obey the law and stop at crossings and lights, never mount the pavement to beat queue etc.

If a mobster truck runs your 8 year old over, tough titty, eh?

Fair comment about teaching kids road safety, but the rest? Puh-lease!

@xanthomelanamuch harder to cross the road these days with much bigger cars parked on streets. It’s like trying to peer around a massive monolith. Smaller cars are so much better for small pedestrians on so many ways

I have two @ 6ft 3. Not going to fit a mini.
I could in theory cycle it, but the direct roads are not conducive to safe cycling, I did it once in my 20s and it was very scary back then!