Crazy ...
SUVs drive trend for new cars to grow 1cm wider in UK and EU every two years, says report
The Guardian
Bigger cars more likely to kill people, release more toxic gas and are outgrowing design of cities.
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France has fought the trend towards heavier cars more than most of Europe’s big economies. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images.
New cars in the EU and UK have grown 1cm wider every two years, the Guardian can reveal, driven by large luxury SUVs whose sales show no sign of slowing. (...)
New cars have become so bloated that half of them are too wide to fit in parking spaces designed to the minimum on-street standards in many countries, the report found. The average width of a new car in the EU and UK passed 180cm in the first half of 2023, having grown an average of 0.5cm each year since 2001. (...)
In the mid-1990s, the EU banned vehicles wider than 2.55 metres to stop trucks and buses from growing too large. But the legislation did not create separate limits for cars, which analysts say have started to cross key thresholds for which roads and cities were not designed. (...)
Tags: #cars #suv #uk #vs #road_kill #exhaust #pollution #air_pollution #parking #road_safety