Source: Radio New Zealand
The big rise in sales of bigger vehicles has been in urban areas in recent years. File photo. RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
More needs to be done to discourage the use of super-sized vehicles in urban areas – and not just because they guzzle far more petrol at a time when there are growing concerns over price and supply, says a University of Auckland professor.
Double cab utes and SUVs are regularly among New Zealand’s top selling new vehicles.
Their capacity to guzzle fuel is in sharp focus at the moment with prices rising at the pump, along with concerns about diesel which largely keeps industry moving, including freight and farming.
Those concerns have led to calls for more regulation to discourage people buying supersized vehicles.
Professor Alistair Woodward – from the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences – told Checkpoint that while bigger vehicles are still widely used in rural areas and by tradies in the cities, the big rise in buyers in recent years had been in urban areas.
“They are becoming used more and more as the family vehicle, so their use is pretty widespread.
“What has changed is that they have become very popular as an alternative to cars.”
Woodward said more people needed to be aware of how inefficient the bigger vehicles were – “A Ford Ranger uses roughly twice as much fuel per kilometre as a Toyota Corolla.”
But he said the bigger vehicles created a number of other challenges beyond the petrol pump.
“They are bad for the climate with twice as much carbon monoxide, and they are very nasty if they run into you and cause problems.”
He cited a recent study in the US which found that if a child was struck by a light truck, they were seven times as more likely to die than if they were struck by a car.
He said two ways to discourage the rising number of bigger vehicles on urban streets were things like higher sales taxes, and resisting pressure to supersize parking spaces.
“As these double cab utes and other vehicles get larger, they really have difficulty fitting in what used to be an adequate carpark, they cause overhangs and cause frustrations for drivers.
“Rather than taking up more space for parking, we should do something about restricting the use of supersized vehicles in urban areas.”
But Woodward said there did not appear to be much enthusiasm in the current government to make these kinds of moves.
“The previous government introduced incentives for lower emission vehicles and by implication higher costs for people who buy double cab utes. The present government felt that this was not justified, and they have removed that discount scheme.
“So we’re waiting for good moves, but in the 1970s we downsized our cars because of the oil shocks, so maybe we’ve got something to learn from 50 years ago.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
