Lambeth Council yesterday received a delegation of local school children petitioning for action on the relentless growth in the size of cars on the UK’s streets.
The children, representing primary schools in South London, attended a meeting of Lambeth Council asking that they introduce a scheme similar to that in Paris, where excessively large cars pay considerably more to park.
Dotty Robertson is 8 years old and goes to Elm Wood School. She said: ‘Big cars take up more space and that creates traffic jams in our small streets. I have friends with asthma and these big cars and traffic jams make it worse, which makes me feel sad. Big cars are bad for the environment.
‘They also cause more wear on their brakes and the road surface. This means more air pollution and higher carbon emissions. We want Lambeth Council to understand why SUVS are bad so we’re going to to ask the Council to make it much more expensive to have a bigger car.’
Lambeth, along with with two other London boroughs have promised to commission a study into the dangers presented by the increasing number of SUV.
Cllr Rezina Chowdhury, Deputy Leader of Lambeth who leads on Clean Air, said to the children: ‘We hear you, we agree and as a borough with equity and justice at our heart, we will act to protect you and other vulnerable residents. It’s not fair that the majority of public space is used exclusively by the minority of people who choose to drive, and it’s not fair that those who need to drive struggle to find a spot because the space has been taken up by other people driving even larger vehicles.
‘We’re looking at ways to discourage vehicles that contribute most to the road danger emergency, including learning from places that have already done this like Paris and Cologne. We will commission a study in partnership with two inner London boroughs to understand the relationship between technical vehicle dimensions and road danger. We believe the higher bonnet height of vehicles like SUVs is critical in determining the likelihood or severity of injury where there is a collision.’
A report published earlier this month examined police-reported road crash data from Great Britain between 2004 and 2023, to examine whether being hit by an SUV is more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists than being hit by a passenger car.
They found that a child being hit by an SUV had a 77% greater chance of being killed than had they been hit by a ‘regular’ sized car.
Children younger than nine are three times more likely to die from a collision when hit by an SUV.
Dr Anna Goodman, Assistant Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and lead author of the study said: ‘In the UK, we have seen a huge increase in the sale of ever-larger cars. Our findings highlight that these larger vehicles are particularly dangerous for children, especially young children. This is probably because children are shorter in height, and are therefore more vulnerable to the risks of being hit by vehicles with a tall front bonnet.
‘Cities and countries around the world are starting to introduce measures to discourage the use of these large vehicles. Our study strengthens the road safety rationale for such measures in the UK. It also suggests that targeting weight or height will be much more effective than just targeting length.’
Last year, the people of Paris voted to triple parking fees for SUVs, around the same time that research from Transport & Environment revealed that cars have been growing an average of 1cm wider every two years, with SUVs leading the way.
The average width of a new car in 2023 was 180.3 cm, up from 177.8 cm in 2018. The same trend was also identified throughout the previous twenty years. The worst culprit was the Land Rover Defender which expanded by 20.6cm between 2017 and 2023.
While the minimum width for an on-street parking bay is 1.8m, the research found that over half (52%) of the 2023’s 100 best selling cars were wider than that.
Polling shows that 79% of London parents think it’s not safe enough for children to cycle on London’s roads (8% disagree), while 61% are concerned that bigger cars make it more dangerous for children to walk and cycle in London (16% disagree).
Nicola Pastore, a mum of three in Lambeth who set up Solve the School Run said: ‘Every day I worry about my children’s safety just walking to school. The rise in massive SUVs on our streets has made a simple journey feel dangerous. Parents shouldn’t have to feel this way. It’s time councillors stepped up with bold, coordinated action to protect children and reclaim our neighbourhoods.’
photo: Edie Gillholder
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