Give Us Bigger Parking Bays
A magazine article I heard on BBC Radio Sussex this morning got me thinking. They were talking about the size of parking spaces and asked listeners to call in with their thoughts and experiences.
Several callers reported having experienced problems in certain hospital car parks and one call suggested that certain airport parking firms were trying to cram more vehicles into their car parks by making the parking bays narrower. The consensus appeared to be that many people are driving cars that are just too big for a standard parking bay.
This prompted me to find out what a ’standard’ size parking space actually is. It turns out that there is no actual national standard and various local authorities and car park operators define their own standards. However, Park Rite, the UKs largest provider of public car parks, uses parking bays that are 2.4m wide and 4.8m long. This width may seem generous but when you fill it with a modern four wheel drive car, with others on each side, there really is no room to open the doors and get in or out.
I regularly travel to Worthing in my Fiat Punto and I regularly encounter problems getting in and out of my car in certain council run car parks in the town. I think I’ll be taking my measuring stick with me the next time I visit the town and find out if we are being short-changed in their car parks.
September 17th, 2009 at 10:39 am
At last somewhere I can vent off steam about our crazy parking bays in the UK. Everywhere I go if I find two spaces free I just park over both of them, I am sick and tired of getting my doors dented particularly when opposite a two door coupe that has much longer doors, therefore needing even more space. Has anyone seen the car parking spaces at that imported American store Costco? They have huge spaces with yellow hatched lines between, giving you plenty of room. What the yanks think when they visit our quaint parking lots is anybodies guess! Great blog by the way!