Car size should be regulated and a maximum should be enforced. Pavement parking (and other antisocial forms of parking) should also be banned.<p>In the UK, local authorities are in charge of parking enforcement. In Oxford they largely don't bother: I see vehicles parked on yellow lines every day. I can't fathom why, this is an opportunity to raise revenue!
> Car designer Chris Longmore... blames safety legislation for the dramatic increase in size since the 1990s.<p>This doesn't stand up to scrutiny.<p>For example, the 2022 Toyota Aygo X has a 4 star NCAP safety rating (out of a possible 5) [1], and is about the same size as the original 1970s VW Golf [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/Toyota/Aygo%20X/46259" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/Toyota/Aygo%20X/46259</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.automobiledimension.com/model/toyota/aygo-x" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.automobiledimension.com/model/toyota/aygo-x</a>
The current annual car tax in the UK is a freaky thing.<p>For cars registered before March 2001, it's a payment based on engine size (smaller or larger than 1.55 litres); couldn't tell if that's aimed at perceived wealth, pollution, or just leftover because that's how it was back when those cars were new.<p>March 2001 to March 2017, it's a payment based on CO2 emissions. Pollution based.<p>April 2017 to present day, it's a payment in the first year based on CO2 emissions, and each year after that a fixed rate based on fuel type only, EXCEPT that if the list price was over 40000 GBP in which case it's a bit higher for the 2nd to 6th years only. So pollution based for the first year, and then a short period of perceived wealth based, and then just a poll tax.<p>Come on UK, pick one! Are we taxing this based on pollution, apparent wealth or just plain poll?<p>Oh yes, also; if your vehicle was registered in 1983 or earlier, you can register it as exempt from this tax entirely. A UK nod to encourage classic car enthusiasts and people who are just really good at car maintenance, I guess!<p>It changes every so often. There was a time when this annual tax had nothing to do with CO2 emissions; that was judged to then be something that should be discouraged by means of this tax, so it changed.<p>If weight of vehicle is now a meaningful factor, an obvious step is to make this tax higher for heavier vehicles.
The main cause of heavier new cars is the weight of the batteries in EVs. If we're all going to get EVs, we're all going to put heavier cars on the road... Regarding size, my experience of UK roads and parking spaces is that the biggest issue is indeed the increased <i>width</i> of cars.<p>In any case wider roads should be built if only to accomodate decent cycle lanes, which is also something touted as the way forward.
Britain's road were inadequate for the ammount of cars pushed into it to begin with. A nation that tries to rationalize napkin sized 'gardens' and two level homes as 'proper' on the basis of 'our island has limited space' pours ever increasing ammount of cars into this limited space, into the medieval sized road network and infrastructure and prioritize personal car use almost everywhere (with relatively negligible exception, most are in London) if it was the prairie of the america's, has priority over public transport and to a good degree pedestrians too (traffic lights favour cars), incentivising personal car use where it has admittably no proper environment! Car parks are erected in the very center of the cities attracting cars, cars occupy one lane of the two lanes available in almost every town's main street and all residential streets alowing single car width for two way traffic requiring patiece and courtious driving style not to grind traffic to a halt but more like to crawling speed (driving time in most regions is pathetic) while the few incentive with P+R and partial separation of public transport is mixed together with car lanes bringing it to halt and making inattractive in the times it was supposed to help the most (high traffic periods). High portion of single lane roads, houses built to the very edge of the road, kerbs in rural area roads, stone or bush fences at the vertical of your rear view mirror to protect pastures and meadows and basically any inch of private property from public access roads making it impossible to improve. Cars were poured into this inadequate situation without any considerable effort to develope proper and sustainable alternatives for many many many decades, and into the forseeable future. All aggravetad by the insufficient funds allocated to the maintainance of the roads so the road surfaces are in increasingly terrible state already, half or whole decades passing by until simple road faults fixed.<p>It is not the SUVs and EVs that caused this problem but decades of ignorance towards building a suitable and proper system that fits the conditions of Britain.
I think one factor in the gradual increase in car size is the problem of visibility.<p>A lot of new large cars are not only large ( taller and wider ), but have a tendency to have privacy type glass. This means if you are in a traditionally sized car behind you can't see much of the road ahead.<p>Driving in a busy city, the lack of visibility of what's happening beyond the car ahead is very disconcerting.<p>Solution? Get a bigger car yourself, with a higher driving position.
AFAIK in many countries there is also the double whammy of heavy electric cars eroding the roadways a lot more, but not paying for the increased maintenance costs with petrol tax.
Japan's road too, except that there are narrower width JDMs like K-car, A-seg crossover, and minivan. It's annoying that mid-sized C-seg JDM is no longer a thing and they lacks EV lineup except Nissan Sakura K-car.
For any problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.<p>On that basis, what would be wrong with the combination of encouraging (electric?) motorbikes while also making changes to road furniture to improve motorbike safety?
I haven't read the article (paywall), but does it explain why roads in the UK are specifically worse than elsewhere in Europe? Like I've driven this year in Scotland, Czechia and Cyprus and despite constant roadworks in Scotland the road quality is so much worse its not even a contest. Why? At least visually it seems like the same sort of cars one sees driving around (although there may be fewer older cars in the UK, due to rust issues and strict MOT requirements...)