Drivers have been warned about popular vehicles being banned from car parks for being too long as councils refuse to widen bays and crack down on fines.
Since 2018, research has found that councils handed out more than 357,000 penalty charge notices for cars parked outside marked bays.
This resulted in more than £8million in parking fines over the last six years for drivers.
The ban will see restrictions placed on Mercedes S-Class, Range Rovers, Tesla Model S, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, Rolls Royce Cullinan, Kia EV9 vehicles and more.
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Wokingham, South Hampshire, Broadland, South Suffolk, and West Devon have banned wider vehicles
PAA Freedom of Information request exposed five councils in England which have banned vehicles over five metres long from being used in car parks.
Councils in Wokingham, South Hampshire, Broadland, South Suffolk, and West Devon have all banned popular vehicles if they are too long.
The ban on wider vehicles evoked by the five councils could expand to more local authorities, according to the RAC.
It found that 91 per cent of councils stated they have “no plans” to increase the size of parking bays in major towns and cities across the country.
Standard spaces for on-street parking is 2.4 metres wide and 4.8 metres long, but one expert has called for an increase in sizes.
To allow wider vehicles to fit, the British Parking Association recommends parking pays to increase from 4.8m to five metres and the width of a standard parking bay increase from 2.4m to 2.6m.
Dave Smith, BPA head of marketing and communications, said: “Larger parking bays will make it easier for everyone to navigate into and out of spaces and reduce the risk of damage to other vehicles when opening doors.”
Smith added that it also means that drivers are not spending “lots of time” circling around looking for spaces that they can easily access.
Research by Transport and Environment detailed how vehicles are getting one centimetre wider every two years, making them more unsuitable for on and off-street parking spaces.
The average width of new cars expanded to 180.3cm in the first half of 2023 from 177.8cm in 2018.
According to the T&E research in 2023, over half of vehicles sold were too wide for the minimum specified on-street parking space.
This means they are too big for average spaces in major cities, including London, Paris and Rome.
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In 2023, over half of vehicles sold were too wide for street parking
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Nicholas Mantel, head of Churchill Motor Insurance, added: “Widening cars combined with parking bays that haven’t been redesigned to accommodate today’s models, means motorists all over the country are at risk of damaging their cars through no fault of their own.
"Ask almost any driver and they will have a story about having to creatively escape their car due to a lack of space when in a car park, even crawling out through the boot."
