As I posted in another community this was crossposted to: This article is bullshit.
With the exception of what’s happening in the author’s imagination, nothing that’s is happening will make it easier to import or drive these in the EU. In fact, the EU, by respecting categorisations made in the US, will be mandating that these be treated as the dangerous, polluting industrial vehicles they are. They won’t be able to drive through town centres, in low emissions zones, park in car parks, be driven on car licenses, or be taxed and insured like a Fiat Punto any more. So instead of there being tens of thousands of incorrectly regulated one-off exceptions like we have now, there will be vehicles held to the same standards as all the others.
Even that aside, there’s just less demand for them in Europe. The Euro equivalent to a big American truck is the diesel wagon. Has torque, can put a bunch of shit in the back. And it’s enclosed!
Our fuel prices are just so much higher and in a lot of EU countries, most people can’t afford 100k € trucks in the first place.
Damn, if that’s true this comment needs to be way higher
Interesting, may I ask how you know?
Because I read the actual announcement, and I remember something that all authors of sensationalist nonsense about EU laws want their readers to forget: any new law or agreement exists alongside all the existing ones. The actual agreement here is that vehicles can be imported from the US - in fact, it arguably makes it easier - but they will be categorised, regulated and taxed as if they were first registered in the EU rather than given special exemptions. That means they’ll need to meet EU laws on pedestrian safety, emissions, efficiency , and so on. Even ignoring that, these cannot be driven in the EU on a car license because according to the EU they are not cars. So the EU has not opened a floodgate, they’ve closed a loophole.
Thanks for replying, are you implying that they can not be driven with a standard B license?
EU (and UK) car licenses cover a maximum fully-laden weight of 3.5T, which these trucks vastly exceed - some of them weigh well over 2.5T before you even put fuel in. Since US regulations are not currently being considered, it’s up to the importer to declare the maximum weight so they just pinky-swear that the MLW is 3,499.9999kg or whatever. It’s arresting to think that if these were judged fairly, most EU drivers couldn’t drive one of these but could drive a LWB Sprinter.
It’s also worth remembering that even in the US, trucks are commercial vehicles distinct from cars and it’s only because of terminal car-brain that they’re subject to exclusions and subsidies that makes it possible to use one just for commuting.
I think you might be right. But there are pbbly still some of those lighter pickups that can be driven by a B licence, which is unfortunate. I found the vehicle chart on Wikipedia quite helpful https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_classification
P.S. also crazy that so many US vehicles exceed that weight limit. Heavy and big cars are generally bad for everyone.
not all vehicles can be registered as “mainly for personal transportation” (don’t know the actual term), which is a requirement for B licenses.
It’s definitely not just pedestrians that have been sold out. Those monster trucks kill everyone from pedestrian to bicyclist, from motorcyclist to smaller car driver. The only thing they have going on for themselves is that if other people have one, you need one, as well, or you are blind on the roads and easy prey when they go hunting.
Heck, they even have an astounding ability to kill children in their own driveways!
Nephew of a guy I worked with was killed in Austin on a summer visa riding an electric scooter by someone turning right in one of these monstrosities. Driver didn’t see him.
Fuck whoever allowed this deal.
And their own drivers - they are far more succeptable to roll over accidents, the most fatal type of accident. And due to being classed as light trucks, rather than cars, they have less rigorous protection against these types of accident.
You say that like that’s a bad thing.
Taken across the street from my house in Amstelveen, just about 15 km from Amsterdam Centraal Station.
The truck parks with tires on the curb, and won’t fit in a space lengthwise either. I am filled with rage every time I see it.
All of that and you still can’t fit a standard sheet of drywall or plywood in the bed. What a piece of shit.
Workmen here all use vans. Although admittedly if they’re doing a lot of work the materials are usually dropped off by a truck (an actual truck, not a pickup truck).
Same here but I am seeing workmen slowly changing over to pick ups. More expensive and less versatile but they are still getting more popular.
Getting a car like this in the Netherlands of all places is just stupid. This person should be ashamed of themselves (although I bet they’re not)
They’re probably ashamed of an anatomical feature.
Report it to your municipality
You don’t get a ticket for it in the Netherlands?
bylaw
law
vandalism
My keys feel suddenly very drawn to these cars.
They won’t even see you when you get close enough
Europeans can vote with their wallets and boycott nonsensical vehicles from the fascist country across the pond. They don’t have to wait for their increasingly corrupt powers that be to do the work for them you know…
You can vote for yourself only, not for your imbecile neighbour who “Biggy car. Wanna-wanna-wanna!”
You can’t expect Europe to not have that contingent.
Yup. This is the best argument for regulations because voting with your wallet isn‘t as democratic as it sounds.
Well, it’s not final. I remember a time - in Belgium I think - when a utility vehicle was defined as having no backseats for passengers. Scores of people registered Porsches and other obviously passenger cars with the backseats removed as tax-exempt minivans.
Belgium put a stop to that and suddenly, all those backseat-less sportscars got taxed like they ought to be. Just like that, retroactively.
The same thing can happen with your vroom-vroom-loving neighbor very quickly.
Depends on what’s actually in the trade deal.
But yeah, hopefully we can tax the yank tanks out of Europe if we can’t ban them outright.
It was similar in Germany. I owned a pickup truck campervan a few years ago (really old ford ranger which was tiny compared to current models) and they suddenly taxed the vehicle as a commercial truck instead of an RV, this made it really expensive. Taxes are the way to go to discourage people from driving these cars.
A few years ago, seeing a US style pickup truck in Germany was very rare. Those that were around were usually genuine work vehicles. But now you see more and more douchemobiles that clearly serve no other purpose than to boost their owners’ fragile egos.
They are extremely impractical. With the typicallly sized American pick-up, You get virtually no loading space on the footprint of a decently sized van, powered by an engine that guzzles fuel like no tomorrow. Unless you absolutely need 4x4 and low overall vehicle height in combination, you’re better off with a van. If you need that combination of features to do some actual work, better get a Hilux, because that’s a seriously mass produced vehicle for which you’ll easily get spare parts and that can be repaired with metric tools. If you actually need a pick-up with dead serious off-road capabilities, get the pick-up version of the Land Rover Defender. Instead of one of those extremely large pick-ups with twin tyres on the rear axle, as you see over in the US, you can simply get a proper truck, which offers better visibility, far superior loading space to footprint ratio, and, thanks to European workplace safety regulations, more comfort, because it has mandatory air suspension in the driver’s seat.
I seriously hope people start vandalizing these things, I think that would go further than voting with their wallets.
You could shame them for being a stupid asshole buying it.
Except the endangered pedestrians aren’t the buyers… The rules are to protect the pedestrians from buyers that value their purchase above the safety of others
When you’re voting with your wallet, people with bigger wallets have bigger votes, and those guys tend to not be on the right side of most issues.
Consumers does have a lot of power but consumers seems to be influenced a lot and not reflect “logical” and “human” in their choice.
Yeah, no… that will not work. People always want the biggest dick, car, home whatever… Some people will buy them for sure.
They can, but propaganda works. A few commercials of driving those things over pristine wilderness and throw in some sex - boom Every idiot wanker has one.
Insane
I’m 6’4" and my head and shoulders is really all that’s visible. (And that’s for the trucks without lift kits)
A few years ago I saw a massive Dodge Ram at an autobahn rest stop in Carinthia in Austria, license plate from Mödling, a suburb of Vienna. Stuck right the hell out as an outlier in the parking lot, towering over and wider than anything else. I went to go take a pic of it, and surprisingly/unsurprisingly on the back was a 3D-printed badge that says WWG1WGA
For those confused, I took one for the team and googled “WWG1WGA”, turns out it is related to Q and means “Where We Go One, We Go All” or something dumb like that
WWG1WGA
What’s that?
It’s from the Q Anon cult in the US. It’s the crew who push a ton of antisemitic and conspiracy theories designed to push it’s followers into Nazism.
Everyone’s kicking off about trucks but what about the millions of SUV’s people drive without even needing to ability to go off road. The most common argument for owning one is the higher driving position or it being “safer”
To be fair, most SUVs can not handle off road terrain anyway. But i get you.
Someone should demonstrate the center of gravity concept for them
And they are not safer. Although they do have a larger crumple zone, the reason for this is that they have more mass which necessitates more energy to be absorbed.
They simultaneously have higher kill rates when colliding with people on foot or on a bike. So altogether, they are less safeI can hate two things.
I would add to have some more loading space (or better usable)
If you’re looking for loading space, get a station wagon instead of a SUV, because the enormous wheels of a SUV take away quite a bit of interior space. Also SUVs are rather heavy empty already, so you can’t load that much weight without overloading. A family of 4 with baggage for a 2 week vacation might already be too much for some models.
All cars have collapsing rear seats this is a moot point unless you’re carrying large loads frequently. And if you are just get a van
I’ve not seen any of the small penis vehicles in Spain yet, or France for that matter…
I do drive between Spain and the UK twice a year, just got back from the UK yesterday after driving through France.
However, I’ve seen a fair few in the UK and they look ridiculous.
If we all catch on and get them known as small penis vehicles, or SPV’s colloquially then hopefully people will be scared to buy them
Appeasement never works. They tried that with Hitler back in the day.
Can’t wait to draw dicks on them tanks ^^
Maybe get stickers that read ‘emotional support vehicle’
I would prefer Murderous Monster
sad sounds of penises shrinking
Guess what insurance businesses will do with that. Maybe not all is lost.
I doubt that it will change much, those monstrosities are so massively impractical that only a handful of select idiots will even consider buying one.
Unfortunately you are severely underestimating the amount of idiots…
disgusting
if the government endangers the populace, it’s up to the populace to ensure the fuckers who have these vehicles are inclined not to drive them
