Is your gut in the way or are parking bays just too small?

Have you noticed while parking up lately in a public place or mall, that your car seems to have become bigger in the car wash? Or have you felt that parking bays may have shrunk over the last ten years?

You aren’t alone, as many motorists around the country struggle to navigate their cars through everyday shopping centres and car parks.

As it turns out, our cars may be from 2020, but our parking spaces are still in the 90s.

The current deliberation under the SANS 10400 building regulations, promulgated nearly 30 years ago, made a provision of a parking width of 2,5 metres to accommodate vehicle girth and turning circles at the time.

To put things into perspective, a typical Range Rover, a popular SUV in Ballito, has a width of about 2,2 metres, which leaves about a ruler space of girth to open a massive door in order to get out.

Most South African parking lots obey the now outdated guidelines without accounting for the increased size of new cars, often owing to guidelines from international organizations such as the Euro New Crash Assessment (NCAP) protocols that steer car design towards safety.

According to Stephen Whitehead, architect at Boogertman and Partners, shopping centres haven’t taken parking into very serious account.

“A sensible developer will be careful of providing poor parking solutions,” said Whitehead. “All that has to happen is for a shopper to scratch his or her car, and they’ll lose that shopper for life.”

Car design has emphasized both passenger and pedestrian safety every year since the inception of the SANS 10400 regulations, increasing the size and width of vehicles to accommodate technology and luxury items, but since 1990, parking bays have not been scrutinized.

Ilse Gore, a Ballito resident and specialist in the motor industry, says that parking spaces are something to be revised.

“A lot of local and public places are going to have trouble amending their painting lines,” says Gore humorously. Many vehicles also exceed the length for a standard parking bay, making turning in and out more difficult.

According to USA regulations, parking bay widths have increased to roughly 2,7 metres across or roughly nine feet wide in order to accommodate newer cars.

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