A nationwide survey of public car park parking spaces carried out by Semperit Tyres, has highlighted a significant number of spaces that are narrower than the recommended guidelines.

In its guidelines for car park layout, Dublin City Council states that a parking space should not be less than 2.4m wide. However, when Semperit surveyed 20 of Ireland’s most popular car parks in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, almost 1 in 5 (19%) of the spaces measured were narrower than the recommended width.

‘Narrow’ car park spaces were found at each location surveyed, and some of the results show a significant discrepancy from the recommended width of 2.4m: 1.85m at Brown Thomas car park in Dublin; 1.89m at City Hall, Cork; 1.9m at Grand Parade in Cork, Arthur’s Quay in Limerick and Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin; 2.2m in Eyre Square in Galway and ILAC in Dublin; and 2.1m at Dublin Airport.

Semperit’s Paddy Murphy commented: “Clearly, there is the fact that our cars have generally increased in size since many of our car parks were first opened. The average family car is 1.8m wide but many of the larger SUVs are actually wider than some of the spaces we found. Poor car park design is another factor, in that pillars intrude into spaces, meaning motorists do not have the full width of the space to manouvre into.”