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Really Big Cars

TheCatWoman

I nearly got run over yesterday by a truely huge 4x4 vehicle I'm 5'10" and this monster came between my hips and upper rib cage, I know that round here a lot of people need big 4x4's for work and for just getting around if they live in a remote bit of the island with poor roads, but do we really need them, should they be discouraged?

The latest thing seems to be electric range/land rovers, all huge and heavy, the damage done by these cars to our roads is increasing and because the roads are in a poor state people feel they need a 4x4 to cope with them, some of the pot holes are real car killers. I'm concerned about the size of so many of these newer vehicles, they're so huge and people are so careless, they don't fit in normal parking spaces and if I get one on either side of me in a car park I can't see past them and have to slowly drive out hoping for the best that theres nothing whizzing up behind or in front of me.

I have a skoda fabia, a perfectly normal small family car, and I often feel bullied by these huge things, I don't feel that I'm visible and it scares me, I could fit my car inside some of these huge things.

I'm seriously thinking it's time to have some sort of restrictions on the size of vehicles that you can have on a normal driving licence and that maybe there should be a seperate licence catagory for cars over a certain size like there is for motor bikes

  • My household is a tall family of 4, now all adults and one of my children is 6’4” and we have a VW Golf and manage just fine, including camping holidays using a roof box. I can’t stand some of these large vehicles as they really are far more dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, equestrians and other smaller vehicles. I have a rule that I never let them out in front of me when traffic is slow and they are joining the road, petty I know but it’s one small thing I do to make me feel a bit better! 

  • To paraphrase the last line of the song 'Big Rock Candy Mountain', "I'll see you all this coming Fall, in a big dumb Chelsea tractor."

  • TheCatWoman said:
    I'm concerned about the size of so many of these newer vehicles, they're so huge

    This is all a result of electric vehicles being the only real solution to travel being pushed by the government.

    Battery technology remains very heavy and bulky due to the range needs of the average user in the UK and keeping the cars low and wide is a solution that reduces wind resistance and gives a sensation of a spacious vehicle (so long as you are not tall). Add in all the safety features that cars need now and you have a hugely expensive and bulky / heavy vehicle.

    All the electric motors, batteries and general mechanical bits make the car much heavier than the petrol powered counterparts, but since petrol will soon be a legacy product then this is the future. If only electric cars were green enough across their lifecycle to merit this then it would be a good thing.

    Car parks could make the spaces bigger but they stand to make a lot of profit from fine (by using more than 1 space) by keeping the spaces tiny. There is no business incentive to pay to have the spaces all re-worked since it will result in an overall loss of revenue.

    I suspect there is going to be a new generation of electric vehicles to "solve" this issue soon, just as soon as everyone has one of the old, bloated ones. Making them smaller will be a great way to encourage people to buy the new ranges.

    TheCatWoman said:
    I'm seriously thinking it's time to have some sort of restrictions on the size of vehicles that you can have

    Once the government are losing sufficient revenue from the heavily taxed petrol / diesel then they will find a way to tax electric vehicles since you won't be able to buy anything else. I suspect weight will be the avenue used here which will co-inside with a drive by the electric car industry to have smaller cars. Amazing what their lobbying and donations to the political parties can produce.

  • TheCatWoman said:
    maybe there should be a seperate licence catagory for cars over a certain size like there is for motor bikes

    That's a good idea. They just don't fit into most car parking spaces with room for normal cars to park beside them. I never see two parked beside each other, presumably for that reason - that they need more than their share of parking space. I used to live in a tourist area and our one and only supermarket would often have a massive mototrhome taking two or four spaces, or a big car and trailer doing the same. They should be confined to a specific area of any car park - prefereably the least used part.