Expanding car sizes and burgeoning driver waistlines are fuelling an increasing trend of deliberate ‘bad parking’ over two spaces, according to AA president Edmund King.
“The increasing size of vehicles is having an effect on bad parking, as car parks were designed in the 1950’s and 60’s, when cars were much smaller” he said, adding: “Some drivers are also worried about being able to get out of the car once they have parked without getting stuck, so this is also a reflection of a rise in obesity in people.”
The controversial greedy parking technique is being named after former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who tweeted about the practice in July 2016.
The rise in bigger cars has caused car park crashes to sour by 35 per cent over the past two years, prompting warnings that standard parking spaces are too small for current models.
Claims firm Accident Exchange cites more than 675,000 car parking collisions and scrapes each year – or 1,859 per day – costing drivers a total of £1.4 billion.
Dave Smith of the BPA said, “The best designed parking spaces provide the right balance between sufficiently wide spaces to allow easy and effective use, while maximising the number of spaces available. Simply cramming in additional spaces is counter-productive because the parking operates inefficiently.
‘While it may be time to consider wider parking bays, we are now being promised driverless, self-parking vehicles that might be less concerned about bay width. until then, drivers have a responsibility to ensure they are parking so as not to cause inconvenience to others.”
