SUVs make up more than 40% of new cars sold in the UK – while fully electric vehicles account for less than 2%

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Idk about any of that, I'm in Cornwall tho and we have lots of issues with people with big cars being unable to fit past. Frau Bahn may be an exceptional driver or you have wider roads, or both. Many are not tho, I've had people barely passing me on a motorbike. Others barely passing a yaris (after they froze solid and let Mrs Newme do the driving past) afraid to let a leaf touch their car and leaving no room. We have 6-8ft hedges and not a lot of room to get past, when it's two small cars, no issue. When it's two giant car drivers. We were stuck while they had a stand off or one reversed badly.

She's a shit driver. What we have found over many years of driving down those lanes is that if a Mini will fit through then so will a Transit, if not, one of you backs up to the passing place. The fact she didn't stack it in to a hedge has amazed me tbf.

 

[newme]

She's a shit driver. What we have found over many years of driving down those lanes is that if a Mini will fit through then so will a Transit, if not one of you backs up to the passing place. The fact she didn't stack it in to a hedge has amazed me tbf.

We have bits where it's barely motorbike and car that can pass. Then they nearly knock me in the hedge cos they won't go near the verge. Or they need to reverse but can't do it properly. Passing places can be fairly far apart and one of them needs to be able to reverse. I've had to reverse my motorbike a large distance when they couldn't manage 15ft back and just froze like rabbits in headlights. Despite blinding me with theirs.

 

[stavros]

Personally in favour of a complete ban on parking on the pavement though, something else that has just started happening but needs to be cracked down on hard before it becomes too much of a problem is people running power cables from their house across the pavement to charge their car.

I believe pavement parking is banned in London, but not as far as I know anywhere else in England.

There's also the quirk that you're allowed to park mounting the pavement, but not permitted to drive on the pavement (unless it's a dropped kerb for access). The car should transfer from the road to the pavement by means other than driving, presumably.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

We have bits where it's barely motorbike and car that can pass. Then they nearly knock me in the hedge cos they won't go near the verge. Or they need to reverse but can't do it properly. Passing places can be fairly far apart and one of them needs to be able to reverse. I've had to reverse my motorbike a large distance when they couldn't manage 15ft back and just froze like rabbits in headlights. Despite blinding me with theirs.

Yeah, that’s just shit drivers though, doesn’t matter what car they are in.

 

[newme]

Yeah, that’s just shit drivers though, doesn’t matter what car they are in.

Plenty of shit drivers have smaller cars and can fit because the car is smaller. Also means they don't need to reverse to a passing place cos they can just pass the other car.

 

[pbsmooth]

We have an Audi Q8...

yes you've mentioned it a few times...

 

[SpookyFrank]

I believe pavement parking is banned in London, but not as far as I know anywhere else in England.

There's also the quirk that you're allowed to park mounting the pavement, but not permitted to drive on the pavement (unless it's a dropped kerb for access). The car should transfer from the road to the pavement by means other than driving, presumably.

You simply park the car first and then build a pavement under it.

There's a consultation going round on pavement parking, but parking on the pavement so that little old ladies on mobility scooters have to risk their necks just to get to the post office is just about the most tory thing you can do so I have little hope of a nationwide ban coming from the present government.

 

[SpookyFrank]

if a Mini will fit through then so will a Transit

It's not a great day for you and the basic mechanics of three-dimensional space is it?

 

[MickiQ]

It's not a great day for you and the basic mechanics of three-dimensional space is it?

Even though I know you're pushing the whole bitter and twisted vibe, that's still funny Frank.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

yes you've mentioned it a few times...

Too fucking right I have! You know I do actually own the road, yeah?

 

[platinumsage]

It's not a great day for you and the basic mechanics of three-dimensional space is it?

The Transit Custom is 1986mm wide with folded mirrors, whereas the Mini Countryman is 2005mm wide with unfolded mirrors. However the Mini's mirrors are bulbous things that don't save much space when folded, so I think Bahnhof Strasse is substantively correct.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

The Transit Custom is 1986mm wide with folded mirrors, whereas the Mini Countryman is 2005mm wide with unfolded mirrors. However the Mini's mirrors are bulbous things that don't save much space when folded, so I think Bahnhof Strasse is substantively correct.

Frank doesn’t do facts, they upset his patter.

 

[editor]

Magical extra space?

Are you taking the piss or just actually pissed?

So you want all car parking spaces to be increased in size to accommodate these polluting oversized SUVs and increasingly larger cars.
I simply asked where you think all this extra space is going to come from.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The Transit Custom is 1986mm wide with folded mirrors, whereas the Mini Countryman is 2005mm wide with unfolded mirrors. However the Mini's mirrors are bulbous things that don't save much space when folded, so I think Bahnhof Strasse is substantively correct.

Standard mini is 1700mm wide. Countryman version is an SUV so that one being wider is hardly a surprise. In fact SUVs being too big is the main issue here.

And a van has a valid reason for being big. It has to move big things. While an SUV will only move as many people as a hatchback and less stuff than an estate.

 

[newme]

So you want all car parking spaces to be increased in size to accommodate these polluting oversized SUVs and increasingly larger cars.
I simply asked where you think all this extra space is going to come from.

SUVs to get the parents and child slots! Can't expect them to walk 5 feet further like the commoners.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

So you want all car parking spaces to be increased in size to accommodate these polluting oversized SUVs and increasingly larger cars.
I simply asked where you think all this extra space is going to come from.

You’re not from South London originally, so you’re well aware of how much empty space there is in this country, so stop pretending that there’s not room for a couple of inches extra on a parking space.

 

[editor]

Interesting commentary from the FT, of all places:

We should regulate SUVs out of existence​

In the UK, for instance, the average SUV costs more than the median full-time pre-tax salary of about £33,000 — leaving aside petrol. Generally, it’s the rich who emit most CO₂. Getting rid of huge cars is about reducing emissions first and road accidents second.

Given that SUVs consume one-fifth more oil than medium-sized cars, they now emit about three times more carbon than the UK, per the IEA, which also says that they “have helped keep transport emissions rising “at an annual average rate of nearly 1.7 per cent from 1990 to 2021, faster than any other end-use sector”. Passenger vehicles already account for about 9 per cent of all global emissions. And every day, more people on Earth can afford to buy a car.
Petrol-fuelled SUVs still massively outsell the supposed big new things on the roads, electric vehicles. Even electric SUVs won’t do much to prevent dangerous climate change because they require outsized batteries, given their bulk and relative inefficiency. And manufacturing a car battery consumes as much energy as making the e-car itself.

The second strike against SUVs is that they are killing people now. They are particularly lethal in their land of birth, the US, where pedestrian deaths rose between 2010 and 2018. Meanwhile, deaths fell almost everywhere in Europe, where SUVs remain much less prevalent. This demolishes the argument that the big new danger is texting while driving. Because of SUVs’ weight and drivers’ limited visibility from inside, they protect their occupants while endangering everyone else, most tragically children run over in driveways by unsighted parents. SUVs induce a kind of arms race: when other cars are huge, people in small cars feel unsafe and decide to bulk up, too. Road accidents are a growing danger as populations age because elderly pedestrians have a bigger risk of being killed.

https://archive.ph/DHr9n#selection-2053.0-2057.693

 

[editor]

You’re not from South London originally, so you’re well aware of how much empty space there is in this country, so stop pretending that there’s not room for a couple of inches extra on a parking space.

Oh right, so you don't want car spaces increased in the most populous part of the country, then?

Because it would be exceptionally silly and naïve to suggest that there's plenty of free room readily available for oversized cars in London and the south. Or any other major city in the UK, in fact.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Oh right, so you don't want car spaces increased in the most populous part of the country, then?

No, glad we’re on the same page. I think car driving should be made even more unpleasant than it already is in cities, after all I pay a fuck-ton of tax so you can swan about on public transport at ease, elsewhere, and where Frank da Plank was bemoaning was not South London, the country is more than your adopted fiefdom, there’s plenty of room for a couple of extra inches of room to park up.

 

[Rob Ray]

1. Car parks are generally not resizeable to make bigger spaces without making fewer spaces
2. Digging up the countryside's remaining environmentally vital old growth hedgerows to make space for bigger vehicles to pass through would be a gigantic waste for the sake of a minority of massive cunts.
3. It's actually a good point about parking spaces being something we could look at changing though. We could make most of them smaller, and let the big car types fight to the death over the remaining spaces. It'll do wonders for Tesco popcorn sales so it's good for the economy too.

 

[SpookyFrank]

We'll just dangle all the extra spaces over the edges of the multi-storeys I suppose.

 

[Rob Ray]

We could take the guard rails off round the edge and let the car chubs take their chances.

 

[SpookyFrank]

We could make most of them smaller, and let the big car types fight to the death over the remaining spaces. It'll do wonders for Tesco popcorn sales so it's good for the economy too.

We won't need to bother with tarmac or drainage for the giant spaces either because these things are all go-anywhere, rugged outdoor machines for rugged outdoor people. In fact I'm amazed they need parking spaces at all, when you could so easily just leave them halfway up the side of a ravine or at the bottom of a lake or something.

 

[Rob Ray]

Good call - if we put signs saying "4x4 parking here" in all our major rivers that should solve the space issues at a stroke.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Good call - if we put signs saying "4x4 parking here" in all our major rivers that should solve the space issues at a stroke.

Won't work. You'd have to put "Executive 4x4 Parking Here" on the sign so all the important people know it's especially for them.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

1. Car parks are generally not resizeable to make bigger spaces without making fewer spaces

Make them bigger, reduce the number spaces, charge more for the parking, price people out of driving. This is all good, no? Would stop people like SpookyFrank moving to remote areas and driving all over the place, these sorts of lifestyle choices need to be nipped in the bud.

 

[newme]

Good call - if we put signs saying "4x4 parking here" in all our major rivers that should solve the space issues at a stroke.

We did have two deice off our parking on the Quay, not sure how they managed it with benched in the way. Then like 19 caught cos the rivers occasionally goes high and floods it. Was funny seeing them hoppy jumping to the car tho lol. It was like 1 foot of water and they had huge tyres. No damage except the weird choice of footwear for a river walk...

 

[SpookyFrank]

Make them bigger, reduce the number spaces, charge more for the parking, price people out of driving. This is all good, no? Would stop people like SpookyFrank moving to remote areas and driving all over the place, these sorts of lifestyle choices need to be nipped in the bud.

I live in a city and commute by bicycle.

You I assume are commuting to the top of a fucking Cairngorm every day, hence the need for a vehicle with off-road capability.

As for charging more for parking, Mrs Frank cannot drive to work because she works at a hospital and the parking charges would bring her below minimum wage for her 13 hour shifts. But yes let's use poverty rather than regulation to decide who can drive what and where. Luxury 4x4's for all the surplus carpetbaggers, walking home in the rain for the working folk.

 

[Rob Ray]

Tbf there's an immiserationist take there that if we very specifically make sure that the only people in any given car park are the absolute worst of us we'll know exactly where to go on a riot day.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I live in a city and commute by bicycle.

Ok, so you didn’t write this…

I can't get tax back on my car because I only need it to get to work at my actual job

If you didn’t tell lies your points may have more impact.