Tight Squeeze in Parking Lots Bumps Up U.K. Mishaps

A car-loaning company says SUVs are big in the U.K. – so big they’re being blamed for a surge in parking-lot fender-benders.

The outsized vehicles crowding the region’s highways are being blamed for a 35% surge in parking-lot scrapes and bumps to 675,000 a year or 1,859 a day, costing £1.4 billion ($1.75 billion) annually.

The problem: Car-parking spaces are too small to accommodate the big new models.

Accident Exchange, which loans cars to motorists whose damaged vehicles are being repaired, says the Audi Q7, Mercedes-Benz GL-Class and BMW X5 – 16.4 ft. (4.9 m) long and nearly 6.6 ft. (2 m) wide or more – all are too large for average parking spaces.

That’s because 87% of the slots use outdated government guidelines of 15.8 ft. (7.9 m) in length, nearly 1 foot (0.3 m) shy of the average length of the big SUVs.

Accident Exchange says with the added challenge of pillars and tight ramps in multistory car parks, maneuvering larger vehicles is making some of the facilities no-go areas for U.K. motorists.

The company’s study looked at more than 85,000 incidents it recorded between mid-2013 and August. It says it’s not just SUVs’ growing size impacting accident levels; the average size of smaller vehicles are significantly larger than their counterparts just 15 years ago.

The study, which measured the growth of some of the U.K.’s most popular vehicles, found the latest Vauxhall Corsa, with a 16% size increase in the past 15 years, has seen the biggest change.

“Drivers are having to squeeze increasingly large cars into spaces that generally haven’t got any larger for a very long time,” Scott Hamilton, operations director-Accident Exchange, says it’s a trend seen across most vehicle segments.

“Manufacturers follow the market, and so (light vehicles) are outgrowing parking spaces, he says. “The undoubted success of the SUV segment will have played its part. Perhaps the roads aren’t quite ready for them.”