As cars have gotten bigger, so can parking spaces

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Large American-style pickup trucks are becoming increasingly popular in Australia, much to the chagrin of some drivers.

“The Americans are coming for our roads and flooding them with their disgusting big old trucks,” said one news report announced. Another described it as a “tsunami of super-sized American pickup trucks.” And some have cited reports of these vehicles apparently getting stuck while going around roundabouts, a rare occurrence on American roads but very common in Australia.

Although the popularity of American style uten – commercial vehicles, or pick-up trucks – is relatively recent; Australian vehicles have steadily grown larger in recent decades. SUVs and light commercial vehicles – including utes – made up 77 per cent of new vehicles sold in Australia in 2022, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. Ten years ago, the two categories represented less than 50 percent of sales.

It has become notable that Standards Australia, the non-governmental body that sets the country’s parking space requirements, wants to increase the length of on-street parking spaces by 8 inches, or just under 8 inches, to “match the trend of larger vehicles on the street’. Australian roads.”

In making the recommendation – which is open for public comment until next week – the agency’s chief executive, Adam Stingemore, said that the size of parking spaces was last revised in 2004. At the time, “about 13 percent of our national fleet was SUVs,” he said. “It’s now about 40 percent. Now that our cars have changed, we also have to think about our parking garages.”

This is despite the fact that current Australian parking spaces, at 5 metres, 40 centimeters or more than 17 feet long, are already relatively large by international standards, according to Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities program director at the Grattan Institute think tank. For example, a standard parking space in the UK is only 2.5 by 4.5 meters – so small analysis found that about 150 car models do not fit in it.

Ms Terrill says Australia’s already generous parking spaces are part of the reason our cars are steadily getting bigger, implicitly sending drivers the message that “big is either absolutely fine or actually quite good.”

Another factor behind the increase is tax breaks, she said, which have lowered the cost of purchasing a vehicle for both businesses and individuals. “Some people will take that savings in the form of a larger vehicle,” she said.

Experts have raised a number of concerns about these larger vehicles, mainly around their high fuel consumption and emissions, and the increased risk of serious injury they pose to other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.

As more large cars hit the road, owners of smaller cars may be more inclined to upgrade, Ms Terrill said.

“It is not good for our collective if there is an arms race for bigger and bigger vehicles,” she said. “But if you get into an accident, the bigger the other vehicle, the worse it will be for you – so you can see where people are coming from.”

On another note, last week we asked readers how they were preparing for and feeling about a summer of fires and smoke, ahead of what is widely expected to be our worst fire season since the deadly summer of 2019-2020. We received many thoughtful, detailed responses, which we are slowly working through. Thank you to everyone who wrote to us!

Now for this week’s stories.