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Guardian

2025

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Proliferation of oversized vehicles is of concern because of their multiple associated harms

These include

• Road danger: SUVs and other similarly large vehicles increase overall road danger and externalise that risk onto others. A systematic review found that, in the case of a crash, pedestrians are 50% more likely to be killed if hit by a light truck vehicle than if hit by a passenger car. More recent studies have similar findings, and also find that the risks are higher for women and particularly high for children.

• Environmental resources, climate and air pollution: Larger, heavier vehicles are more resource- and carbon-intensive to manufacture, and generate more carbon emissions and air pollution when driven. This also applies when electric SUVs are compared to smaller electric cars, as heavier vehicles require more critical minerals for the manufacture of their batteries, and generate more tyre-related air pollution when driven.

• Crowding out other road users and road uses: Longer vehicles take up more kerbside space when parked. Wider vehicles reduce road space available for other road users and for active travel infrastructure like cycle lanes.

(Goodman A, Nix J, Tyndall J and Laverty A. 2025)

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“clear and growing threat to public safety

  • The bonnet height of new cars in the UK and elsewhere in Europe is rising relentlessly, a report has found, bringing a “clear and growing threat to public safety, especially for children”.
  • Higher fronts on cars significantly increase the death rate when pedestrians are struck. The analysis also found that drivers in the tallest cars could not see children as old as nine at all when they were directly in front of the vehicle.
  • The UK has an especially large number of the cars with the highest bonnets. This is due to greater sales of Land Rover models which, with Jeep, are the only car brands with average bonnet heights over 100cm. The researchers accused Land Rover of “trading on the intimidation that comes with high-fronted vehicles [and] ignoring their related dangers”.

(Guardian 2025)

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  • In crashes, high-bonneted SUVs are more likely to strike the vital organs in the core of adults’ bodies and the heads of children. Hitting pedestrians above their centre of gravity means they are more likely to be knocked forward and down and then be driven over. In contrast, low bonnets tend to hit pedestrians’ legs, giving them a greater chance of falling on to the vehicle and being deflected to the side.
  • The report, by the advocacy group Transport & Environment (T&E), found that the average bonnet height of new cars sold in Europe rose from 77cm in 2010 to 84cm in 2024.
  • The rise matches booming sales of SUVs from 12% to 56% of all cars over the same period, with the increasing size of vehicles being described as “carspreading” or “autobesity”. SUVs are also 20% more polluting on average and this rise in sales is cancelling out the reduction in climate-heating CO2 due to electric vehicles and fuel efficiency improvements.

(Guardian 2025)

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  • There is no legal limit to bonnet height in the UK and Europe. The researchers said a limit should be introduced for 2035 and set at about 85cm.
  • “A child is killed every day on our roads, yet cars are being made so large that children are invisible from the driver’s seat. How is that acceptable?” said Barbara Stoll, senior director of T&E’s Clean Cities campaign. “Thankfully, more and more city leaders are pushing back against carspreading, standing up for what citizens actually want: safe, green streets without monster vehicles.”
  • Paris and Lyon in France, and Aachen in Germany, are among the cities that charge bigger cars more to park. In the UK, councils in Cardiff, Bristol, Oxford and Haringey in London are looking into similar measures and last week the London assembly called for limits on bonnet height.

(Guardian 2025)

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  • (The T&E report) found that a driver of a Ram TRX was unable to see children aged up to nine who were standing directly in front, while a Land Rover Defender driver could not see children aged up to four and a half.
  • A 10 cm increase in bonnet height, from 80cm to 90cm, raises the risk of death in a crash by 27% for pedestrians and cyclists, according to a Belgian study involving 300,000 casualties. Children were substantially more likely to be killed as pedestrians in collisions than adults, the report said.
  • The number of cars with extremely high bonnets is “very disproportionate” in the UK, the report found. The UK made up 15% of all new car sales in Europe in 2024, but 39% of the sales of cars with bonnets higher than 100cm. Land Rover models represented 85% of the 63,000 cars with bonnets 100cm or higher sold in the UK that year.

(Guardian 2025)

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  • The report noted aggressive marketing slogans for the Land Rover Defender – “Locked and loaded” – and “Built to impress, known to intimidate” for Ram pickup trucks: “The intention is clear: such companies are trading on the intimidation that comes with high-fronted vehicles, ignoring their related dangers.”
  • The report concluded: “The rise in high-fronted SUVs poses a clear and growing threat to public safety, especially for children. With no benefit to society, it’s time for lawmakers at all levels to act.” The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, Jeep and Ram did not respond to a request for comment.
  • The surge in SUVs is also making European cars wider, a 2024 T&E report found, with half of new cars too bloated to fit into standard parking spaces.

(Guardian 2025)

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SUVs are making Britain’s potholes worse, say scientists��

  • Drivers who choose SUVs are compounding the pothole problem, experts have warned, as research showed hundreds of thousands of people bought bigger cars to navigate damaged roads.
  • Prof Anna Goodman, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “The typical SUV exerts around five times more force on the road than the typical passenger car. The dramatic shift to SUVs in the past 20 years – from 3% of cars on the road in England to over 30% – is expected to have played some role in increasing wear and tear damage.”
  • Prof Christian Brand, the emeritus professor in transport at Kellogg College, Oxford, said SUVs were typically 200-300kg heavier than hatchback or sedan cars. While a single truck could do as much damage as many cars, “the rapid growth in SUVs means their cumulative impact, particularly on urban roads with lighter construction, may not be negligible and is increasingly relevant for local maintenance pressures”. (Guardian 2026)

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Manifesto for fairer & safer streets (SUV Alliance)

1. Reform Vehicle Excise Duty to introduce a progressively higher tax on the most polluting vehicles proportional to the vehicle’s weight.*

2. Set maximum width, length and height limits for new car sales from 2030 so that carmakers cannot continue to sell passenger vehicles that are too big for parking spaces.*

3. Follow the lead of Edinburgh City Council and The Hague to introduce a national tobacco-style ban on SUV advertising - including hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric SUVs - in outdoor advertising spaces like billboards and bus stops.

4. Mandate that carmakers must publish an “ecoscore” for all new electric vehicles, combining engine efficiency with the carbon footprint at the vehicle’s production stage including the battery, steel and aluminium.

5. Empower and encourage more local authorities to introduce progressive parking tariffs on heavier, bigger and more polluting passenger vehicles.

(SUV Alliance 2025)

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References

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