More car park prangs '˜because spaces aren't big enough'

More accidents are happening in car parks because spaces aren't big enough for modern cars, says a report

The study by accident aftercare specialist Accident Exchange says car park prangs cost Britain’s motorists around £1.4bn in the last year.

The company said they accounted for almost a third of the claims it received.

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It pointed out that several large SUV models were more than more than five metres in length and around two metres wide, meaning it is impossible to park them with the Government-recommended space of 4.8 metres long.

And with the Government recommended parking space width at two metres, Accident Exchange says there has been an increase in the number of door prangs.

The company said its research showed almost 90 per cent of councils stick to the car parking space guidelines despite the rise in the number of larger cars.

Scott Hamilton-Cooper, director of operations at Accident Exchange, said: ‘Drivers are having to squeeze increasingly large cars into spaces that generally haven’t got any larger for a very long time.

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‘Almost all of the councils we researched carried over the government’s recommendation, which makes things tight for large cars. This could be contributing to the rise in car parking incidents we are seeing.’