car expertIt seems that many parking bays have become too narrow for our ever-widening cars. Reader Tim Verhagen wonders whether there are actually standards for this. Our car expert Niek Schenk answers.
Ask: I have the impression that passenger cars are getting wider and therefore the parking spaces are too tight. Is there actually a standard for the minimum width of such a section?
Auto editor Niek Schenk replies: ‘According to research by the French consultancy Inovev, today’s cars produced in Europe are on average 10 centimeters wider than similar cars in the year 2000. So yes, the cars have become considerably wider. Some passenger cars are now even wider than 2 metres, while many parking bays have hardly grown at all, if at all, since the 1970s.
A standard size for parking bays is used in Europe: 2.30 meters wide and 5 meters long. But the European car manufacturers in particular complained some time ago that this is no longer of this time. The manufacturers advocate a width of at least 2.50 meters. And in old parking garages, as a result, only three spaces would have to be combined into two.
In the Netherlands, the CROW knowledge platform advises municipalities and road builders on the construction of parking bays. Within built-up areas, a size of 2.50 x 5.00 meters is already being used. The Netherlands Standardization Institute also uses a standard (NEN-2443), which takes into account the use, the duration of use and the user profile. For multi-storey car parks, the parking bay width for public intensive use must be at least 2.50 metres, for public car parks at least 2.40 meters and for non-public car parks and covered parking facilities at least 2.30 metres. The same principles apply to parking lots.
There are different standards for parking along the street. This usually assumes a section of 1.80 to 2.00 meters wide. But there the cars are not next to each other, but at most parked behind each other. If there is perpendicular parking on the street, a width of 2.40 to 2.50 meters is assumed. Because then there is more risk that your door will hit another car and that you will not have enough space to get in and out.’
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