{"id":531621,"date":"2026-07-03T19:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/531621\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T19:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:55:21","slug":"why-our-love-of-big-cars-is-killing-us-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/531621\/","title":{"rendered":"Why our love of big cars is killing us \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">In the next <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/06\/23\/bigger-cars-are-costing-irish-motorists-parking-spaces-and-threatening-lives-study-finds\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/06\/23\/bigger-cars-are-costing-irish-motorists-parking-spaces-and-threatening-lives-study-finds\/\">15 years, an additional 400 pedestrians<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cycling\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cycling\/\" target=\"_blank\">cyclists<\/a> and motorcyclists will be killed on European roads because of the increased average car size. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">The figure is based on projections using data from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/eurostat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/eurostat\/\" target=\"_blank\">Eurostat<\/a> and the UK department of transport. Research by the Transport &amp; Environment (T&amp;E) think tank suggests those road death figures could be significantly higher. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">After 25 years of relentless growth, our roads are increasingly dominated by huge SUVs that pose a physical danger to everyone else.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">And bigger cars mean less space on the roads and in car parks. Big vehicles, such as SUVs and pick-up trucks, simply don\u2019t fit parking spaces that were designed for a different, smaller car age. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">So why are SUVs so deadly for other road users? And why, even when they are made aware of the dangers their large vehicles pose for other road users, do drivers still choose them anyway? <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/\">Irish Times<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/motors\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/motors\/\">motoring<\/a> contributor Neil Briscoe reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the next 15 years, an additional 400 pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists will be killed on European roads&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,27203,61,60,14835,11318],"class_list":["post-531621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eurostat","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-motors","tag-road-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}