BAN URBAN SUVS

A Range Rover driving idiot was “shocked when our renewal quote for this year arrived from Aviva, which had shot up from £893 to £2,531. An increase of more than 180%.” 

According to the DVLA, Range Rovers were the second most stolen cars in 2022, with more than 5,200 taken. Earlier this year, an Autocar investigation found that owners were being denied insurance because the risk of theft had become so great.

Aviva says: “According to the Association of British Insurers, premiums have risen in recent months due to inflation and rising claims costs.

“Unfortunately, there has also been an increase in thefts of high-end vehicles, particularly in urban areas, and this has impacted JM’s premium. Many are being stolen to resell the vehicle, or its parts, in the UK, or overseas.”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/aug/28/how-can-our-car-insurance-renewal-go-up-by-a-shocking-180

Fears over safety as analysis by Which? shows ‘autobesity’ epidemic means cars getting wider and longer

More than 150 car models are now too big to fit in average car parking spaces, according to analysis conducted by Which?.

While the size of the standard parking bay has remained static for decades, cars have been growing longer and wider in a phenomenon known as “autobesity”.

Natalie Hitchins, Which?’s home products and services editor, said:

“Cars are getting larger and larger, and while this might mean a more comfortable driving experience, it could be a problem when it comes to squeezing into a parking space.”

There is growing debate about car size and road safety, after two eight-year-old girls, Selena Lau and Nuria Sajjad, died when a Land Rover crashed through a school fence in south-west London in July.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/26/more-than-150-car-models-too-big-for-regular-uk-parking-spaces

Electric cars will need to be smaller with shorter ranges and people must make fewer private journeys by road to ease the inevitable surge in demand for critical metals when transitioning to battery vehicles, according to a new report.

These are among the recommendations outlined by a green transport thinktank as part of a study looking into how to moderate the consumption of key metals needed for electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

It says the usage of critical metals – namely lithium, nickel and cobalt – could be slashed by almost half by 2050, though this is dependent on manufacturers no longer producing hulking SUVs.

And it has called on governments to introduce ‘weight-based taxation’ on the heaviest and largest motors.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/we-must-kill-off-large-electric-suvs-and-make-fewer-private-car-journeys-to-cut-demand-on-critical-metals-says-green-transport-group/ar-AA1e1zpV

Our research shows that a full three quarters of all SUVs sold in the UK to private citizens in 2019-2020 were actually registered to urban addresses.

What strings have advertised pulled in people to bring about such a perverse shift in the face of the double air pollution and climate crises?

Decades of work and countless billions have gone into carefully and deliberately cultivating consumer demand for vehicles that are bigger and more powerful than their typical buyers could ever need in practice. Advertisers spent an estimated $9 billion alone between 1990 and 2001 – and that was before the market took off.

https://theecologist.org/2021/apr/07/what-actual-truck

Earlier this year it was reported in the U.S. that the “nation’s SUV boom is becoming increasingly deadly” after it was revealed that pedestrian deaths hit a 28-year high in 2018. A new data crunch from British transport data experts shows there may be a similar lethality problem with SUVs in the U.K.

Britain’s Department for Transport (DfT) should be “really concerned that some [car] sizes are twice as likely to kill pedestrians compared to others,” says transport policy advisor Adam Reynolds.

He has worked with other spreadsheet specialists on police crash data made more statistically accessible by Robin Lovelace, a “Big Data” fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies at Leeds University in northern England.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/08/15/restrict-twice-as-deadly-suvs-in-u-k-cities-urge-transport-data-scientists/