A couple years ago he also made a video about these trucks more broadly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

What's truly maddening is how many of these vehicles which _do not_ meet European safety standards are _already_ in Europe. Walk around Hilversum in the Netherlands and you will see plenty of Dodge Rams (mostly 1500's, but there's even a 2500 Dually usually parked on the sidewalk ("pavement "for Brits) where my kids used to go to school). They're imported under "Individual Vehicle Approval" rules, exempting them from type safety requirements, and on top of that are almost always registered as "business vehicles" (you can tell from the V plate) which means they pay an absolute pittance in tax.

I moved here to get away from American kindercrushers (among other reasons) and I am profoundly concerned that Europe is being invaded by these machines.

(Edit) Worth noting is that a lot of Dutch street design is based on the idea that people _can_ share space with cars in dense, low speed environments, but that assumption flies out the window when the vehicles are so large you can't even see a kid walking or biking to school.

Further edit - source - https://www.motorfinanceonline.com/news/dodge-ram-registrati... 5,000 Dodge Rams imported in to Europe in 2023 alone.

I didn't know this, but it is absolutely crazy. Every EU politician who tries to subvert car safety should be dismissed and tried for endangering public safety.

I was stopped by police while taking a walk and shouted at and treated like a criminal when walking in to a Wendy's drive through (even though only the drive through was open at that hour!) But, other than that, the people were incredibly kind! The culture shock though... It is very hard to imagine if you've never been there. I think as someone from western Europe I have more in common with people from Thailand.

Cars are really a must-have in the US, biking is just a hobby. It's more the other way around here. Everybody is a "cyclist" (not even a word we use here) some of the time. It means "carists" have respect and understanding of how it is on a bike, and drive carefully around people on bikes (in general, there are always exceptions). Our infrastructure and law demands it (ie, a car-owner is always financially responsible in an accident with a pedestrian or person on a bike here, insurance for this is mandatory).

Here people in massive US sized cars are really seen as anti-social, in general I'd say. Hope it stays that way. For now I think some of those cars can't even fit into city-center parking garages here (ie [0], btw if you look around there you see separated bike lanes, crossings where pedestrians always have priority (ignoring that is instant fine), very narrow lanes for cars. Go forward in time and you see they added "statues" that look like they are about to cross the street to make drivers aware of this.)

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/tVaeHa4SNAz3iQ4x9

We also had a wedding to go to in France where we drove a Citroen C4. To be honest, if these weddings weren't so far from railway stations and we didn't have to transport so many people together I'd never have done it. And both these cars were tiny compared to the GMC Sierras or Cadillac Escalades you see on San Francisco streets.

I can only conclude that anyone who drives an American-size vehicle in these places is a masochist. It cannot be fun. No, not even to ride in while someone else drives.

> Yet, EU vehicle safety regulations have supported a 36% reduction in European road deaths since 2010. By contrast, road deaths in the US over the same period increased 30%, with pedestrian deaths up 80% and cyclist deaths up 50%.

WOW! That's massive

I thought this stark difference might be partially explained by US population increasing more quickly than EU. However it turns out in the 2010-2024 period, US population increased by +10% while EU27 pop increased +2%. So although there is a minor 8% difference, this is far, very far, from explaining the stark difference even if we compared per capita. The EU is certainly doing something right here.

Adopting such standards in Europe risks accelerating the "bulkinzation" and "truckification" of our roads. This would not only strain already limited space for essential transportation and parking, but also severely increase risks to pedestrian and standard vehicle safety, and in general bring a more hostile road/societal environment a la American "predator capitalism" exemplified.

I am European, I don't think big trucks are particularly well supported by our road systems but I don't think we need to look at American car standards to get the next 10x reduction in traffic-related deaths.

IMHO it is not explainable how in 2025 there are still cars sold without LIDAR-based anti-collision systems, how are these still extra? Systems to warn of objects in the blind spot areas are available yet not mandatory.

This reads like the classic western world strawman to me. Instead of looking at how to improve things we just make sure things are not getting worse. By burning a strawman, in this case trucks from the US. Which are best described as a niche market over here, but now that we have a newly defined enemy, we do not have to confront our shitty carmakers about technological advancements.

These people do not care about human lives, they care about politics.

It literally lets manufactures go as bright as they want, any direction they want, mounted at any height.

EU headlights are not perfect and still can blind, but nothing as bad as bypassing Dodge Ram headlamp being higher than regular car side mirror. Tesla Model 3 and Y headlamps are just engineering failure, spreading light 180 degree and being super bright.

I don't think its EU citizens, because:

    * roads will be damaged faster
    * risk of hitting and killing more people
    * because roads damaged more tax money spent on fixing them
    * more CO2

Just come to Amsterdam and see if you can drive those cars in the middle of Amsterdam. Even trams from 2 opposite direction share same line in some areas.

There’s simply approximately zero demand for F150s in the EU regardless of if Ford sells them directly or not.

European consumers want livable cities with smaller (and more affordable) cars. Thanks.

Here, owning a car is extremely expensive - perhaps one of the most expensive in Europe. This price goes up considerably when you get a larger vehicle, both because fuel costs are very high but also because you are taxed quarterly for CO2/weight of the vehicle.

With a larger family, you are squeezed into an uncomfortable position since you are outside of the <= 2 child norm. Many 7+ seater vehicles (French cars, etc) are extremely impractical to the point of me thinking that they are not actually designed for more than 5 seats in use, as there is comically low cargo room and the 3rd row is extremely cramped (try fitting a stroller or anything besides people...ha!).

I ended up picking up a Chrysler Town & Country import from the USA for my family, because it was the only vehicle that I could find for a reasonable price that checked all of the boxes, and am paying dearly for it (400+ euros every quarter just to have the privilege of registering it!).

Before you say anything about us having a "kindercrusher" we also have 2 bakfiets cargo bikes and use them regularly, but public transit and bikes don't scale well to large families for anything more than a short distance ride (school, groceries, etc).

Large families are being squeezed out of existence here.

Everyone rightfully highlights this striking statistic. But I notice a sleight of hand ("have supported" = correlation) and would like to see a breakdown of the factors that may have contributed to this divergence.

This is fine in isolation but at scale it leads to a race where everyone, especially pedestrians, loses.

Your freedom to do stuff stops where my freedom to walk & cycle around without undue fear of death begins.

Of course, we are talking about two completely different sets of traffic cultures here (urban design, laws etc.) but I wouldn't be surprised if this gets accepted fully as part of a trade deal. EU isn't a strong negotiator, caves easily under American pressure and Trump has a firm hand and knows how to get the best deal for himself.

The only place on the entire continent where I've seen American cars being driven is the Netherlands and they stick out like a sore thumb. They are too big, too loud, too heavy, emit massively more CO2, usually don't have good acceleration (which you need into/out of roundabouts). Just not a good fit for European roads and streets. God forbid you crash into a pedestrian or a cyclists, you kill them instantly. They are built like a tank whereas European cars will self-destroy to preserve pedestrian life.

The safest areas are the ones where people can't afford modern cars yet and with no tourists that rent them. It's sad state of affairs, the space is shrinking every year.

With its pointy edges, even in a very slow accident hitting a pedestrian, the outcome will make any Tarantino movie look soft, in terms of blood being spilled around.

Don't even get me started on those huge American cars, they are the absolute terror in terms of pedestrian safety.

Every euro city seems to be able to set their own regulation on car exhausts

So why not limit the sizes of cars or prohibit specific cars into the city?

I’m frankly surprised Amsterdam didn’t ban some of these huge machines yet

I detest how each city has different rules on exhausts but it might be the only way

EU leaders are bankrupting their continent, lying to their citizens, marching into a war they'll NEVER win... but pedantic auto safety standards - this is important? this is news?

europe deserves it's little seat @ the kid's table.

It seems myopic for this group to go after American vehicles and the size of their market share in the EU and UK, whilst China guts our car market with a thousand cuts from the other side.

I could not find one negative article about China on their website, maybe it's not an area of focus for them (or they're bought out already)

https://etsc.eu/?s=china&submit=

As a Brit I am less worried about my VW Passat blowing up or having some wiretap back to Beijing, or locking me out of the car when the firmware defaults back to Mandarin.

My cheap, Chevy Trax has some of these features. Lane keeping assistance is there. It will tell me if there is a pedestrian in front of me. If it sees someone’s brake lights then it will flash a red light on the windshield to warn me that I am too close.

It doesn’t have emergency braking but my Wife’s 2019 Honda Odyssey had all those things except the pedestrian protection. All US vehicles.

What standards are we really talking about?

This is one of these articles that feels more like clickbait and judging on the emotional responses I see in this comment section it worked. The top comment is railing against Dodge Rams which wasn’t mentioned in the article.