Over recent years, vehicles have increasingly gotten heavier, with their average weight rising from 1.5 tonnes in 1974 to almost 2 tonnes today. As a result, old multi-storey car parks might be at risk of collapse.
This increase in weight could prove fatal, and might have caused the death of one person in the collapse of a multi-storey car park in New York City in April 2023. The incident is still under investigation.
To prevent the situation from causing further harm, the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) commissioned a team of 10 engineers to update design recommendations for multi-storey car parks.
The review's conclusions proposed that car park owners have their buildings inspected by engineering firms to see if they need to be strengthened. If this was not possible, the experts recommended that owners impose a vehicle weight limit of up to two-and-a-half tonnes on old buildings, to prevent the risk of collapse.
“Potentially if...