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Keep these monstrosities off our roads 🙅‍♂️

"US carmakers have accused Brussels of keeping their largest pick-up trucks, including the Ford F-150, the Chevy Silverado and the Ram 1500, off European roads”

ft.com/content/3eb796fd-bcdb-4…

carsized.com/en/cars/compare/r…

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

incredible cultural insensitivity from Brussels, don't they know that the F150 is Ford's *smallest* truck in that line?

Edit: for context the f-350 is 6.8 m long and 2.4 m wide, it's a common vanity truck in the US, I often see them without a scratch and with no dirt as though they'd never left the pavement (ah, the link is for the f-350 so ok) 🤣

Questa voce è stata modificata (20 ore fa)
in reply to Tomás García Gobet

@reloadedhead goingdark.social/@cyberwitch/1…
You know, there are many truck drivers that get struck into narrow roads just because they followed G maps, that's another reason
If you are a danger for people you have no right to do as you wish for no reasonable necessity


they're so dangerous. Part of this arms-race of "protecting ourselves on the road to the risk of everyone else." Their high center of gravity and sense of overconfidence is terrible for snowy conditions, and their enormous hoods make blindspots where even people in my neighborhood got killed by one of these things talking a turn and not seeing pedestrians.

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

We had an F150 beside us on a Dual Carriageway, somehow in the Blindspot but that was an F150 and I've no idea why anyone needs a vehicle that big

The bed capacity was lower than the Mercedes Sprinter my dad used to own and that thing was basically the same size as one of these, but that's a commercial vehicle.

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

I strongly feel that vehicles should be taxed by unladen weight. The damage to roads -- which has to be met out of the public purse -- scales with the fourth power of the axle loading, and the tax should scale similarly.

It would be tricky to frame legislation which outlawed very large and heavy private vehicles which would not also outlaw fire engines, for example; but it wouldn't hurt to tax them into oblivion.

filobus reshared this.

in reply to Yrjänä Rankka 🌻

@ghard @simon_brooke
The Netherlands already taxes cars at sale according to their weight and carbon emissions. I think the annual road tax also goes up with weight.

About a decade ago I looked up the taxes for an Audi Q5: they were about € 20,000 at sale. You see very few of those on Dutch roads.

I expect other EU countries to have similar tax codes.

reshared this

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

What those carmakers failed to understand is that the European infrastructures are no designed to accommodate such vehicles (parking space, narrow street of old cities, etc).
Also there are not adapted to coexist with pedestrians and bicycles.
Those problems doesn’t exist in US as cities are car centered and walking nearby or biking on roads is considered an heresy.
in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

they're so dangerous. Part of this arms-race of "protecting ourselves on the road to the risk of everyone else." Their high center of gravity and sense of overconfidence is terrible for snowy conditions, and their enormous hoods make blindspots where even people in my neighborhood got killed by one of these things talking a turn and not seeing pedestrians.
in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

it's simply a case of they won't fit.
In our urban area, we already have problems accommodating the oversized cars on streets built for smaller vehicles. The issues are caused by both parking on kerbsides and trying to drive between vehicles parked both sides.
I honestly don't know why thedrivers put themselves through the hassle of the silent negotiating to get down a street with a vehicle coming the other way -which happens quite often by my observation.
The cost of 'upgrading' ...🤔😬
in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

a fair comparison would be with the high-roof mercedes sprinter. Of course, the shortest sprinter van isn't even sold in the US, and is still some 30cm narrower than the F-SuperDuty.

Though I still won't defend how absurdly large our cars are. I want something affordable the size of the old jeep cherokee or a golf estate, and it just doesn't exist on the new market.

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

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American trucks are bloody massive but comparing it to a Twingo from 1998 is a little disingenuous.

The three trucks also mentioned (F-150, Silverado and 1500) are also much smaller than the F-350 you used too.

More realistic comparison, Dacia Sandero (apparently best selling car in EU) vs Silverado.

Still massive in comparison, but not the "wow it's gigantic" in comparison either.

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

The US – the only country on the planet to reject the international-consensus U.N. Vehicle safety and emissions regulations, instead clinging rabidly to their own (different, mostly not better, often substantially worse) standards, and which uses bogus taxes to keep non-US pickup trucks out – bitching about non-tariff trade barriers when the world's grownup countries close enforcement loopholes on the world's grownup vehicle standards. Fabulous.

Let's hope Europe doesn't repeat Japan's very stupid mistake.

in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

EU has no law barring US monsters from the market.
The cars must only obey the security requirements, esp. pedestrian safety.

Beyond 3.5t total weight (i.e. max loaded) a vehicle qualifies as freight transporter and requires an enterprise, a regularly re-tested commercial vehicles driving license (including medical check-ups every 2 years).

Plus speed limit at 80km/h as for any other truck.

Questa voce è stata modificata (12 ore fa)
in reply to Frédéric Jacobs

Absofuckinglutely marvelous of Europeans to keep American monster cars and trucks off European roads. They crush other vehicles in accidents, their massive blind spots put every pedestrian and cyclist - people about whom Detroit automakers know nothing - in constant peril.

As with s/w, just because you make a product does not give you the right to sell it anywhere, any time, for any price, much less to force communities to build themselves around it - or suffer the consequences.