Active travel campaigners from the UK are calling for higher taxes on the owners of “supersized” SUV to tackle the phenomenon of “carspreading”, pointing out that academic studies show them to be more dangerous to cyclists, pedestrians, and smaller car users, as well as causing more pothole damage while also being unable to fit in most parking spaces.
A YouGov survey conducted in January found that only 18 per cent car owners in Britain held the belief that there shouldn’t be any additional charges on SUV owners. Clean Cities, a European active travel organisation campaigning for healthy and climate-friendly transport, has pointed to this study to demand changes in the current auto taxation system.
Its researchers found that since 2021, around 4.6 million cars have been sold in the UK, which were bigger than a typical urban car parking space — more than 1.2 million a year, with SUV sales figures pointing upwards.
“Supersized” SUVs, which the campaign described as being either more than 1.8m wide or 4.8m long, have been growing in popularity despite them crowding out space in towns and cities, causing more road wear and being more likely to cause fatal injuries for children, cyclists and those driving smaller cars.
> SUVs more dangerous to cyclists than other cars, study suggests
It claimed that if you were to add up just the extra length and width that overhanging SUVs take up, it would stretch for over 192 miles, the equivalent of driving from London to Leeds.
Oliver Lord, UK Head of Clean Cities, said: “Cars are getting bigger every year — while our streets are not. We need carmakers to prioritise normal-sized cars that can be parked more easily and are less dangerous to people walking around. It’s only fair if you want to buy a massive SUV that you should expect to pay more for the space it takes up.”
To tackle the phenomenon known as “carspreading”, the campaigners are calling for fairer taxes in favour of lighter and more appropriately sized cars and for parking costs in cities to be based on the size of a car.
A new academic paper, published earlier this week, shows that heavier cars are more likely to be involved in fatal collisions, and average car weight in the UK is increasing.
This may lead to a rise in fatal collisions if the trend continues, the academics warn. Reducing car weight could mitigate the severity and frequency of collisions, while academics suggested that policymakers could consider “taxation on heavier cars” and that “local authorities could adjust parking policies to charge higher fees for heavier cars”.
The study, led by civil engineer Ruth Carlson and co-authored by Nima Dadashzadeh, assistant professor in transport and business analytics at the University of Huddersfield, is based on preliminary findings with the full paper out later this year.
> SUVs ‘eight times more dangerous’ to kids walking or cycling than smaller cars are
New taxes could reap significant rewards for HM Treasury and the Department of Transport. As well as the additional revenue, discouraging sales of heavier cars could reduce road maintenance costs.
According to ‘the fourth power law’’, a formula developed by US Highway Officials, the damage done by a vehicle to a road surface is proportional to the fourth power of its axle weight.
A two-tonne SUV therefore does 16 times more damage than a one-tonne car. The potholing of road surfaces is even worse when it rains because heavier vehicles create much stronger hydraulic pressure, forcing water into any flaws and breaking up the road surface.
Harriet Edwards, a concerned parent from Sutton, said, “It’s not just the added stress of not being able to find somewhere to park, it’s the sense that if I’m involved in a collision with one of these giant SUVs, that me and my family are far more likely to be seriously hurt or killed.
“If you cause more danger, create more potholes and take up more parking space, it’s only fair that you pay a little bit more.”
Figures from the RAC show drivers encounter an average of six potholes per mile in England and Wales and the cost of pothole damage to vehicles is around £500 on average, with more severe repairs costing considerably more. According to the AA, fixing potholes is a priority for 96% of drivers.
Edmund King, the president of the AA, is on record as saying: “Better maintenance of the road network is the number one concern of drivers as damage costs a fortune and potholes can be fatal for those on two wheels.”
According to the YouGov polling, 61 per cent of UK passenger car owners agree that “SUVs take up too much space”, while only 19 per cent disagree. Further, 71 per cent of car owners also agree that SUVs make parking more difficult, while only 15 per cent disagree.
A 2023 study from the US also found that SUVs are causing more cyclist injuries, with crashes with SUVs resulting in 55 per cent more trauma and 63 per cent more head injuries than crashes with cars, owing to taller front-end designs.
A year prior, another US study showed that SUVs are eight times more dangerous to kids walking or cycling than smaller cars are. It also found that although SUVs are involved in much fewer crashes than standard cars, they are twice as fatal.
66 thoughts on “Active travel campaigners call for higher taxes on “supersized” SUVs to tackle “carspreading”, claiming they are more dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians and cause more pothole damage”
Yes!
Yes!
not only should they be taxed more, there are two additional issues:
1. Relative to other vehicle types, they are taxed at a lower VED rate than they used to be, until George Osborne as chancellor changed things
2. a lot of the really nasty pickup trucks are taxed less, because they can be classed as commercial vehicles, even if they are not commercially necessary. Builders might need them, but most users don’t.
the little onion wrote:
That loophole, at least, is being closed – from this coming Sunday, April 6, in fact, double cab and extended cab pickups will now be classified for tax purposes as passenger cars, not work vehicles, so they can no longer be offset as a business expense against taxation and they will incur higher benefit in kind levies for any employees driving them.
Ooh, that’s good news.
Ooh, that’s good news.
Builders don’t even need them
Builders don’t even need them. There is a reason people drive vans in this country. I don’t know what it is about open bed trucks/pickups as well but they are seemingly driven almost exclusively by utter ***** on our roads. I can almost guarantee that someone will be driving like a knob when they are in one.
mctrials23 wrote:
They are big bullying vehicles that are only purchased by a certain type of person who wants not only to flaunt their wealth but also to make a statement about how they are an alpha male (sorry if that’s sexist but I’ve never once seen a woman driving one) who has a right to push their way through society and that everyone else should get out of their way. It’s no surprise that their driving matches the vehicle.
I know someone who had one of
I know someone who had one of those stupid pickups. They couldn’t afford it but said they got it because it was manly or some similar nonsense.
It was also impractical as a family vehicle.
I’d ban them from the roads unless used for getting from one part of a farm to another.
Agreed. They seem to have
Agreed. They seem to have some of the features of a van, but with the added benefits that your load gets wet or nicked.
My former next door neighbour
My former next door neighbour was a female who owned a Mitsubishi Warrior as her daily motor. She owned a cross-fit gym. Pickup trucks are very popular and desirable with folks involved with the fitness industry. Not for practical reasons, but simply because the owners like to project the “alpha male/female” image which also appeals to their customers, and those vehicles are seen by those people as reinforing that image.
As for SUVs, the big Range Rover type ones, I see just as many women driving those in my area as men are.
Same here re-SUVs, in fact
Same here re-SUVs, in fact possibly even more women than men driving them, there seems to be a pattern in very rich areas of households owning one SUV and one sportscar type of vehicle, I would take a guess that the men more often use the sports car… I was only talking about those pickup trucks specifically, I’m sure of course there must be a number of women driving them, just saying that I don’t recall ever seeing one driven by a woman.
I don’t believe that
I don’t believe that additional taxation is going to make a huge amount of difference for many SUV devotees; someone who can afford £100,000 plus on a Range Rover or a Porsche Cayenne probably isn’t going to be that bothered by a few quid extra in tax. The solution is surely to make them impractical and inconvenient to use; ban non-commercial vehicles over a certain size from using municipal car parks and on-street parking spaces and introduce width restrictions in appropriate areas and refuse to issue residential parking permits on the streets below a certain width and people would soon start looking for smaller vehicles.
Absolutely. Since sumptuary
Absolutely. Since sumptuary laws have a spotty record and making stuff unfashionable is a tricky business, we’ll have to go with interventions like you suggest.
Wait – why don’t we make our streets narrower?
What’s that? People say they’re already “too narrow” for pavements or cycle space? 😢
That’s a good point.
That’s a good point.
I dunno. If a lot of these
I dunno. If a lot of these SUVs are bought on finance, then proportionately an extra £300 per month in VED, or whatever, might sway things, but perhaps less than a change in the car financing market.
(I have heard the car financing marking described as ‘the next sub-prime crash’ because there is so much potential bad debt there. This might have a bigger impact on the growth of cars than anything else.)
I’d like to see ‘colour and
I’d like to see ‘colour and sound’ rules for motor vehicles. SUVs for example, would be available only in a patchy mixture of barbie pink and 1980 Austin allegro brown, and would emit various donkey noises every few seconds.
slc wrote:
My first car was a 1979 mini in that shade of British Leyland brown. I loved that car, but it was (literally) a shit colour.
Relevant to this thread, of course, because no model car shows how bloated cars have become more than the mini.
Steve K wrote:
Mine too. Hid the rust fairly well.
slc wrote:
A very good family friend had worked at the Department of Transport. He told me when I had that car, that they’d done a study at one stage about which colour car was the safest. The conclusion was really “it depends on the conditions” (eg white might be great in the dark, but rubbish in fog”. The only clear conclusion was that brown was the worst colour. I never did know whether this was genuine or if he was winding me up.
Steve K wrote:
And relevant to the reminiscence of the mini, here we see the reality of the fashion driven size increase in the classic small car.
Weren’t the original Range
Weren’t the original Range Rovers diarrhoea brown so they didn’t stand out at the shoot and startle the game?
the little onion wrote:
Car financing has a lot to answer for. It is a valuable service for many, but I’m sure most normal people with needlessly large and flash cars have done so because the financing system encourages it. It also means people who are spending £xxx every month feel obligated/entitled to get their money’s worth. I also blame that for the increase in insurance costs for those of us with more modest vehicles.
I’d not be upset by restrictions to ownership, and some will love the opportunity to show off that they can afford to tax their oversized car. But in reality there will be some who will think twice about getting a car with the tax premium. I’d also argue that simply discovering that one of the cars they are considering will be subject to the ‘anti-social, road damaging, w@nker tax’ will encourage them to be more realisitc about the practical challenges of driving a large vehicle on residential streets.
I’m sure for many, buying a stupidly large car is like buying a sofa. It looks a good size in the show-room, but it’s only when you get it home you realise you have to take the doors off their hinges to get it into the living room, and that it dominates the space.
I’d go so far to say that if our government can speak to our neighbours (hahaha) and agree on what constitutes ‘over-sized’, and we all set the premium charges for VED and parking permits accordingly, then the car manufacturers will react accordingly. At the very least, they need to make more noise about the trend towards heavier vehicles making the problem of potholes worse.
Or we could adopt the
Or we could adopt the Japanese approach..
“So, you’d like to buy one our cars…? Ok, let me check our appointment calendar, to see when we can come and measure your parking space…”
Not unless theVED is made eye
Not unless theVED is made eye wateringly expensive.
My proposal would be to base VED on a formula where the negative features of the vehicle were multpled together and divided by the positives. So, you would multiply the mass by the Co2 emissions by the litres/100km by the size and divide by the pedestrian crash rating.
This way, you could massively increase the tax on SUVs in a transparent way that didn’t impact smaller, safer, greener vehicles.
But down the line it can put
But down the line it can put a big dent in its resale value which ups leasing costs and the amount of cash an owner is throwing at their status insecurities.
Quote:
Which means that even SUVs
Which means that even SUVs are a minor issue, it’s construction vehicles, HGVs and buses that disintegrate roads.
Except that there are a lot
Except that there are a lot less of those than there are SUVs. And they’re generally closer to ‘enough vehicle for the purpose’, as opposed to the SUVs, which are mostly ‘more car than is necessary’.
(Though reducing reliance on HGVs, particularly in urban areas, would be great too.)
anotherflat wrote:
So, do those buses do as much damage per person as a w@nkpanzer?
Given that the usual formula
Given that the usual formula for road damage is proportional to axle weight to the fourth power – they do a lot more damage per person.
Even comparing with a bus packed full of people and a single-occupancy SUV.
Heavy cars certainly don’t help. And not all roads carry buses. I do now notice the impressive damage to roads at well-served bus stops though.
I assume that the same
I assume that the same principle would be applied to commercial vehicles of a similar size. Vans etc. Now, lets extend this to lorries, buses etc.
Surely the answer is to ban
Surely the answer is to ban urban traffic. This cobblers about wide vehicles squeezing down between two sets of parked cars would be easy to solve. Ban on street parking. If you don’t have a field, don’t buy a cow.
Doubt if any government or
Doubt if any government or council would have the guts to do it.
Over in the UK it seems hard
In the UK it seems hard to believe. It’s the case in Japan, but we don’t need to get so exotic. There places in Europe where parking is severely restricted – both in terms of places (some have effectively none!) or style (eg. reversing the UK principle and making it “only where explicitly allowed”).
In fact – the UK does have this kind of thing in specific circumstances! Example: some universities don’t allow students to keep cars (and probably other organisations do also).
And as a recent report in the
And as a recent report in the Guardian showed, a million cars a year are sold in the UK that are too big for standard parking spaces. Back in the seventies, we called it conspicuous consumption, flaunting your wealth and arrogance. Tax the pips till they squeak: and then a lot more.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/04/more-than-1m-cars-sold-in-uk-each-year-too-big-to-fit-typical-parking-space
My EV estate is over 4.8m
My EV estate is over 4.8m 🙁 and is wide.
I didn’t want it to be that big, I just wanted an electric version of my previous estate.
anotherflat wrote:
You know you could have bought a smaller car, right? Other cars are available.
My EV exceeds the size. It’s
My EV exceeds the size. It’s the smallest vehicle available which can transport my wife’s trike (excursions or rescue).
I’d like to see limits set
I’d like to see limits set for vehicle power. For instance a 5-seater vehicle is limited to 100 kW (135 PS/BHP). This would make large and heavy vehicles slower and safer as well as reducing environmental impacts.
“A new academic paper(link is
“A new academic paper(link is external), published earlier this week, shows that heavier cars are more likely to be involved in fatal collisions…”
should be
“A new academic paper(link is external), published earlier this week, shows that DRIVERS OF heavier cars are more likely to be involved in fatal collisions…”
“A 2023 study from the US also found that SUVs are causing more cyclist injuries…”
should be
“A 2023 study from the US also found that DRIVERS OF SUVs are causing more cyclist injuries…”
Or be consistent and make it
Or be consistent and make it read: “A 2023 study from the US also found that SUVs are causing more BICYCLE injuries…”
No humans involved, nothing to worry about.
Introduce a large car
Introduce a large car specific driving test that’s harder to pass, requiring more training and a requirement to have a specific large car licence. Actively enforce parking within marked bays.
My son really didn’t want to
My son really didn’t want to go to school this morning. We managed to get him to go, but as he was running late I said I’d take him on the GSD. We would have made it in time, except we got stuck behind a Range Rover struggling to squeeze down a residential street with cars parked (and in the process of parking/dropping off) on either side of the road. But, of course, it’s only ever cyclists who hold up drivers…
LOL , me too the other day, I
LOL , me too the other day, I was on my GSD and got stuck behind a Cadillac Escalade (I think that is what they are called). It was so fat and over sized it couldn’t get down Highgate West Hill without stopping and squeezing past every passing vehicle. And then a single decker bus came up the hill.
I’ve actually given up taking
I’ve actually given up taking most of my backstreet shortcuts in Kensington and Chelsea because it’s better than 50-50 odds that you’ll come up against someone in a wankpanzer inching down the street at 5 mph desperately trying not to scratch their precious. As I suggested elsewhere, width restrictions at the entry/exit point of narrow streets would do a lot to stamp out this madness and definitely make people think twice about buying them.
Ah, but refuse trucks / fire
Ah, but refuse trucks / fire engines / ambulances … oh and the single disability- adapted vehicle on the block (like in the Bristol LTN case).
Ergo we can’t restrict a substantial minority essentially taking the mick / doing what humans always do (conspicuous consumption) and which some companies are always keen to make possible (upselling people on stuff that has that as it’s primary purpose and who cares about more widely distributed negative effects).
But we could have ANPR
But we could have ANPR cameras automatically issuing sanctions to vehicles over a certain width who ignore posted restrictions, no physical barriers required.
we could have ANPR cameras
we could have ANPR cameras automatically issuing sanctions to vehicles
Not in Lancashire you couldn’t – WU59UMH 7 years no VED, previously 6 years no MOT, 6 months driving around with a failed MOT, name of the groundworks business and Facebook details on the back, marked as stolen on one website, reported by me for over 2 years, regularly sat outside the pub in Garstang 100 yards from the police station, spent several weeks there after Christmas without moving, even reported to DVLA. Either they haven’t worked out how to operate ANPR or they’re all switched off all the time here to avoid tiresome work. Not seen it for over a month – probably been sold on to different dodgy owners
Of course … but the current
Of course … but the current logic seems to favour “I have bought it so therefore it is my right to use it. If I’m not supposed to it shouldn’t have been legal for me to but it in the first place.” (See also all kinds of e-thingies).
We do slice- and- dice with categories and road rules, but probably the more complex the less well accepted.
TBH the tail was wagging the dog from the moment the marketeers found that “more expensive, bigger and less practical” could be a *general* market-winner (the “top-of-the-pile” folks have always had demonstrating status as a high priority).
That argument is ignorance of
That argument is ignorance of the widespread height and width restrictions to be found on the many minor roads that were originally created for horse traffic or in built up areas and bridges.
Doesn’t matter how entitled you imagine yourself, you’re not going to win against a bridge height restriction but you might get stuck in tons of bricks.
The issue is we just end up
The issue is we just end up with wider vehicles parked on the road because they won’t fit the garage *, and it being more likely that drivers will hit things which may be to their detrimental but isn’t good for the houses, bridges, other people’s vehicles or indeed cyclists they “scrape by”.
* Of course people do that anyway because they use their garage for storing other stuff because the public road in front of their property is “my space”. Changing that mentality would be a big change!
I did see someone here taking
I did see someone here taking ages to get their wankpanzer through this gap, having to check both sides and even get out !
https://maps.app.goo.gl/CZbF2abpCTKjZ1Bc9
Hirsute wrote:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/CZbF2abpCTKjZ1Bc9— Hirsute
Do you mean this woman, who got out to marshall the truck through and is now walking back to said Wankpanzer which is blocking the road again as it waits?
Take a minute to watch cars
Take a minute to watch cars go past.
MOST have just 1 person – even the huge cars
“Cycle infra is a waste of
“Cycle infra is a waste of space, I rarely see any cyclists there” tho…
The w@nkpanzer tax
The w@nkpanzer tax
SecretSam wrote:
Long overdue and fully justified.
A massive fail on country B-roads where the hints of off road capability are no help in overcoming the excess width and weight. Makes a normal two lane road into a single track with passing places.
What a load of crap here.
What a load of crap here. Whoever thinks that people does not need big car, I’m afraid it’s not for you to decide. If you think that there is more suv than hgv well you will be surprised how many hgv’s there is on the road. By the way how many times I could see cyclist riding through red light just because they can is unreal, but well blame suv’s for it or other cars.
Letniak18 wrote:
Thanks for the warning, but it’s redundant.
Size is relative so Kei car and truck drivers will be pointing at almost everyone in Europe though…
That one seems so stupid and
That one seems so stupid and terminally illiterate, it must be an ironic spoof account
Letniak18 wrote:
You’ll find that every society makes overt and covert rules about what is “need” vs. “want” vs. “thou shalt not” – which is not entirely linked to practical considerations on a single level. So that’s always a question.
Perhaps they didn’t “need” to travel, or not in that way? Maybe society as a whole “needs” vehicles more like the size shown in the picture rather than vehicles which primarily (initially) allowed US manufacturers to avoid taxes and also upsell consumers on vehicles which generated more profit despite being less practical for almost every conceivable purpose (except display)?
The 18 there, is that the age
The 18 there, is that the age, the IQ, or both?
Let’s hope it doesn’t mean
Let’s hope it doesn’t mean there are 17 more…
A lot of large SUV drivers
A lot of large SUV drivers seem to be large. Maybe owning a large, wide car makes them feel smaller.
I remember some research from
I remember some research from 20+ years ago which showed that buying a motorcycle was associated with gaining weight, so maybe it applies to SUVs too.
I see these clogging up my
I see these clogging up my street every day on the school run. Daft thing is that most of them only live 15 minutes or less walk away from the primary school across the road. These are totally unneccessary in an urban environment and are a real safety hazzard. Hike the taxes, then we’ll see who really needs them.
It’s not just SUVs that are
It’s not just SUVs that are too big. Cars are generally getting longer and wider. We have just bought a Skoda Octavia as we needed a family car, and although it’s not an SUV, it’s over 1.8m wide and nearly 4.8m long. It is a TARDIS inside though, unlike an SUV. Manufacturers should be looking at ways to reverse the inflation trend.
This website offers suitable
This website offers suitable data:
https://www.automobiledimension.com/large-suv-4×4-cars.php