The engines rev, the guitars thrum and a gruff narrator lays out why the vehicle occupying the driveway is more than just a machine. “A truck is a tool,” he says, “but a Ram – a Ram is life.”
So begins an advert for the Ram 1500, a pickup truck slightly bigger than the Panzer I tanks of Nazi Germany and almost as heavy. It is growing in popularity in Europe, with the number of Rams arriving on the continent up 20% in 2023 from the year before, according to registration data from the European Environment Agency. Road safety and environmental campaigners in the UK and Europe are aghast as the latest, most extreme cases of North American car bloat – giant pickup trucks – are increasingly crossing the Atlantic.
“Europe should ban the Ram,” said Dudley Curtis from the European Transport Safety Council. “This type of vehicle is excessively heavy, tall and powerful, making it lethal in collisions with normal-sized vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.”
This will not go well.
Europe is not designed for oversized cars. As soon as you are off the “A” roads, it is goat tracks in every direction. And, you can forget about parking. Regular cars have enormous trouble already. Every new car gets panel damage within a couple of weeks. Put those monster US vehicles in the villages it will be carnage.
Too many drivers are selfish morons and will manage to cram their oversized vehicles into any space without consideration for the safety of anyone outside their own bubble. Doesnt matter if the city was “designed” for it or not.
I was just in Bellagio Italy last week. For some reason, cars are allowed to drive through the medieval city center through extremely narrow roads packed with pedestrians… Which is OK if you’re driving a fiat 500… But this oversized jeep cherokee drive right through town, with barely any space for pedestrians to move aside. I’m not sure if it was a lost tourist or a local resident, but drivers should not be trusted to pilot such a vehicle through crowds with so little margin for error.