Critics call it "carspreading". In the UK and across Europe, cars are steadily becoming longer, wider and heavier. Consumers clearly like them – a lot. Big cars are seen as practical, safe and stylish, and sales are growing. So, why are some cities determined to clamp down on them - and are they right to do so?
Paris is renowned for many things. Its monuments, such as the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. Its broad, leafy avenues and boulevards, its museums and art galleries, its fine cuisine. And its truly appalling traffic.
Over the past 20 years, the city authorities have been trying to tackle the problem, by introducing low-traffic and low-emission zones, by promoting public transport and cycling – and most recently by clamping down on big cars.
In October 2024 on-street parking charges for visiting "heavy" vehicles were trebled following a public vote, taking them from €6 to €18 for a one-hour stay in the centre, and from €75 to €225 for six hours.
"The larger it is, the more it pollutes," said the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, before the vote. The new restrictions, she claimed, would "accelerate the environmental transition, in which we are tackling air pollution".
A few months later, the town hall claimed the number of very heavy cars parking on the city streets had fallen by two-thirds.