Too chunky to park

Britain’s car park spaces are proving too small for the country’s growing fondness of large SUVs, with motorists paying out for the prangs that occur as a result.

Cars such as the popular Audi Q7 and Mercedes-Benz GL-Class come in at more than five metres long and two metres wide, while the average parking space is a diminutive 4.8 metres long and just 40 centimetres wider.

Research by Accident Exchange found there had been an estimated 35% increase in parking accidents since 2014. The average bill to repair the resulting damage comes in at £2,050.

Parking prangs account for more than 30% of all recorded accidents, while it is estimated that there are 675,000 of these collisions each year, an average of 1,859 a day.

Scott Hamilton-Cooper, director of operations at Accident Exchange, said: “Drivers are having to squeeze increasingly large cars into spaces that generally haven’t got any larger for a very long time.

“Almost all of the councils we researched carried over the government’s recommendation, which makes things tight for large cars.

“This could be contributing to the rise in car-parking incidents we are seeing. Manufacturers follow the market, so cars are outgrowing parking spaces.

“Not only are popular SUVs usurping smaller hatchbacks when it comes to new-car sales, older, smaller cars are being taken off the street.

“The undoubted success of the SUV segment will have played its part – perhaps the roads aren’t quite ready for them because some drivers feel certain car parks are no-go areas due to the sheer length and width of their cars.”

As the country’s popularity of SUVs grows, so do the problems with parking