Why the heck are cars getting bigger?

It might not surprise you but I enjoy cycling and something I have noticed is when I am cycling on the road I find it harder to see over cars it suddenly dawned upon me that cars are getting much bigger and it is worrying.

I cannot find any raw data on the side of cars over the eras but what I have noticed is that there seems to be a lot of SUVs on the road, and I honestly don’t get why. I am assuming a lot of this is because people nowadays prefer bigger cars or they are getting those bigger cars because others are getting bigger cars and that it is safer to do so and not so surprisingly there is some truth to this¹. Studies have shown that bigger cars tend to cause fewer deaths to the drivers although the studies do suggest it is mostly based on other cars as I can’t imagine a large car hitting a bike being safer than a small car.

Although studies suggest it is safer, one thing that is concerning is that the heights of the car’s headlights seem to be getting higher and higher and when cycling it is starting to be at eye level. I am sure it can be debated that it is due to people not setting their lights up correctly but who the heck needs to have lights that not only seem to be at eye level but also brighter than the sun itself?

I wish when people get their new cars they sort out their lights or at the very least make it a legal requirement for the seller to do so. The same goes for cyclists who seem to have lights that can somehow light up ten miles and oddly seem to be able to track it to your face so it follows you at eye level as you go past them.

Yet another problem I face cycling is on the back country roads which were never designed for cars in the first place let alone SUVs and other massive cars. I can’t count on my hands anymore how often I will be cycling down a country road and a large 4×4 will be driving down the road while barely fitting in the space and then expecting me to get off the road just so they can drive by while they are driving a vehicle that oddly enough is designed to GO OFF ROAD. However, it is funny I remember once cycling down the road to see two 4x4s beeping at each other because one of them wouldn’t pull over so they could pass each other.

Cars right now feel like a nuclear arm’s race with people rushing to buy bigger cars because everyone else has bigger cars and I can’t wait until every car out there is equal to a Hummer H1 or even bigger. With this nuclear arms race with people getting bigger and bigger cars to keep themselves safe, it is starting to cause issues for other types of road users and while I understand you got to protect yourself it is starting to get scary with twats in massive SUVs being on the road and even more so when it seems a lot of those drivers seem to have gotten their licence from eBay and don’t even know what an indicator does. In summary, don’t be a twat and get a small car – even better for the environment too and our roads are designed for them.

1. IIHS-HLDI crash testing and highway safety. (n.d.). Vehicle size and weight. [online] Available at: https://www.iihs.org/topics/vehicle-size-and-weight. ↩︎