SEVEN popular motors have been banned from UK car parks with drivers facing fines if they break the rules.
Owners of well-known car models from top manufacturers will have their parking restricted because of a little known “length rule”.
1
This will affect the owners of popular cars including Tesla, Kia, BMW and Mercedes.
Some of the best-selling vehicles affected include a Mercedes S-Class, Tesla Model S, BMW 7 series, Range Rovers, the Audi A8 and the Kia EV9.
A Rolls Royce Cullinan as well as other high end sports car would also be barred.
British automotive magazine, Autocar, reported that it has received confirmation of the rule from five local councils.
Vehicles that are too long to fit into a parking space are now officially banned from parking in any of their council-run car parks.
If your motor is longer than five metres, you’ll be unable to use their parking bays which measure at 4.8 metres.
Drivers could be hit with fines by the council if their car doesn’t fit the bay.
This poses a problem with cars getting bigger and larger over the years and which are now commonplace on British roads.
Many of the spaces in these council-run car parks haven’t been updated for decades.
New Forest Council explained: “The standard parking space has remained at a consistent size for several decades.
“However, national research has shown that on average, cars have got larger over time, both in width and in length.
“In 1965 the top five models sold in the UK had an average width of 1.5 m and average length of 3.9 m, compared to an average width of 1.8 m and length of 4.3 m for the top five sellers of 2020.”
Autocar sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to every council in the UK asking whether they planned to extend parking bays to accommodate longer cars.
The five local authorities implementing the ban are Wokingham, South Hampshire, Broadland, South Suffolk and West Devon.
They confirmed to Autocar they had effectively banned any cars which fail to fit into their spaces.
Wokingham Council addressed the FOI on its website.
When asked whether cars exceeding a certain length were banned from their car parks, they confirmed the size rule was in place.
They responded: “We have a limit on size of vehicle and weight of vehicle allowed to use the car parks these were introduced at different dates as shown below.
“”Since June 2023, all motor vehicles whose maximum length does not exceed 5,00 metres and overall height exceeds 2.10 metres and whose gross weight does not exceed 3050 kilogrammes, except for access.”
Between 2017 and 2024, Wokingham found 153 instances of vehicles falling foul of the “length rule”.