Does my car look big in this?

Parking. It’s never easy, is it?

Well, it may not be your fault. A new study suggests that parking spaces in the UK are too small to accommodate our love for big cars.

Accident Exchange, a courtesy car loaning company, has estimated that since 2014 there has been a 35% increase in the number of parking accidents.

These crashes and scratches have made quite the financial dent, with car park accidents costing insurers around £1.4bn each year.

Car park incidents now account for 30% of all car accidents in the UK. Accident Exchange’s director of operations, Scott Hamilton-Cooper, says the problem is partly the fault of parking spaces, but is also down to the UK’s obsession with big cars.

“Manufacturers follow the market, and so cars are outgrowing parking spaces,” he said.

“The undoubted success of the SUV segment will have played its part – perhaps the roads aren’t quite ready for them because some drivers feel certain car parks are no-go areas due the sheer length and width of their cars.”

The average car parking space is 4.8 metres long and 2.4 metres wide. However, the popular Audi Q7 is 5 metres long and 2 metres wide. The definition of a tight squeeze.

However, National Car Parks (NCP), the UK’s largest car park provider, says it has been working to increase bay sizes, to keep up with our love of the larger vehicle. They have already widened many bays in London, Manchester and Bournemouth, and are “moving towards making the bays wider” elsewhere, as they “recognise that vehicles are growing in size”.

With 1,859 parking accidents happening each day, it looks like spaces will need to become a bit more accommodating to the larger vehicle soon.