Not Just Bikes 🇳🇱Sep 9, 2025

I've been following this "mutual safety standards recognition" stuff out of the US/EU talks. This could be really, really bad.

It would mean that US vehicles, like those giant dangerous SUVs and pickup trucks, could be freely imported into the EU in volume without having to pass EU vehicle safety standards (like pedestrian safety).

I haven't seen any organised resistance to this. Does anybody know any other organisations that are fighting this?

https://etsc.eu/etsc-mutual-recognition-deal-with-u-s-will-cost-lives-on-europes-roads/

ETSC: Mutual recognition deal with U.S. will cost lives on Europe’s roads

By signing up to mutual recognition of vehicle standards with the United States, the European Union has waved the white flag on road safety. This is not a technical detail – it is a political choice…

ETSC
Show threadNot Just Bikes 🇳🇱

It's bad enough that small volumes of these stupid pickup trucks have been (illegally) imported into the EU under the IVA (Individual Vehicle Approval) lately. The mutual safety standards recognition would totally open the floodgates.

Just a reminder that this is the most popular-selling car in Europe next to the most popular-selling car in the US.

We don't want these dangerous trucks in EU cities.

Sep 9, 2025 at 11:49amWeb
Show threadReid Sep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes *obligatory Romanian recognition celebration for the Dacia Sandero*
Show threadbyte::Arc<Eepy>  :rabiesPride:  Sep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes "safety" and "US" mentioned in one sentence is just laughable. we should burn those trucks on sight
Show threadrefraction Nov 7
@byte @notjustbikes if the state won't protect us like it often doesn't, then we have to keep our cities safe from these things
Show threadednl 🇪🇺Sep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes Ban American sized cars from Europe! Come to think of it, ban American sized cars from America!
Show threadMorsus Apri R.I.P. Natenom🕯️🖤Sep 9, 2025

@notjustbikes
I see these and similar, even smaller pickups or SUVs and wonder what is wrong with these people.
Is their penis tiny, are they unfucked, do they have inferiority complexes because they didn't go to college or get vocational training, is their IQ very low (most of them are intellectually incapable of using their turn signals)?
Do they have inferior jobs, such as real estate agents, insurance salesmen, bank managers?

https://social.tchncs.de/@flxtr/115101069262233831

trusty falxter 🧠:natenomblack: (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images @[email protected] https://norden.social/@Eva_RespectExistence/111058894489596608 https://ruhr.social/@Ente_Bullitt/114979850461228159 @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

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Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri It's just social contagion, in towns like mine it makes you fit in, not much more explanation needed. There's plenty of harmless trends that work like this as well, trucks just happen to be a bad one.
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri It takes a self confidence to not fit in that most people don't have
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri I knew a guy in Atlanta, sweetest gentle man you'll meet, still drove his big truck from out in the country. "I just like it" was all he could find to describe it, it's a source of comfort to keep doing things like your folks do.
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri It's fun to simply ridicule what is outsider behavior to you, harder to ask yourself what you're offering that would induce anyone to depart from what to them is ingroup conformity.
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri To me the solution here has to involve avoiding vehicles being sources of cultural belonging at all, but that's pretty hard. You see it with every class, you saw it in Prius adoption and Tesla, country queers and Subarus, urban gay guys in mini coopers, the mid life crisis Miata. None of it's good, none of it leads consistently to good choices based on honest evaluation of the tech.
Show threadMorsus Apri R.I.P. Natenom🕯️🖤Sep 9, 2025
@chris__martin
Oh, I'm glad to read that this nice man simply likes driving a car that is far too big and endangering the lives and health of those around him.
The main thing is that he's having fun.
The problem isn't the car; the problem is the person who bought the car and/or sits behind the wheel.
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri Why did you go off about inferiority complexes and vocations if you think this software developer's overall personality and stuff doesn't matter?
Show threadMorsus Apri R.I.P. Natenom🕯️🖤Sep 9, 2025
@chris__martin
Oh, quite simply because I have never heard or read a meaningful personal reason why people drive completely oversized cars without consideration for their environment and fellow human beings.
It may be perfectly OK to drive a car for distances over 15 km or in very bad weather if there is no good public transport, but why do you need to move over 2 tons with poor efficiency to transport 0.1 tons of people?
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri I wonder if there's any choices you've ever made without fully thinking through all the externalities before committing to something
Show threadChris MartinSep 9, 2025
@morsuapri When it's an unfamiliar norm we ask "why do they need to" and when it's our own it's unusual to ask anything at all
Show threadMichael ᚋᚔᚉᚆᚓᚐᚂSep 9, 2025

@notjustbikes The EU might (foolishly) recognise them for legal road use, that doesn’t magically make them fit into European sized parking spaces. Local councils need to enforce parking control ruthlessly; when they exede the parking bay, they need to be remorselessly fined.

Owners will soon get the message they are not welcome.

Show threadStoorydusterSep 9, 2025
@baoigheallain @notjustbikes And it should be mandatory for concerned citizens to slap - “Does this vehicle fit into the kid-killer class?” along with a diagram and dimensions of why they are a danger to children plus a mention of no crumple zones - as an official looking illustrated sticker onto the bodywork.
Show threadMichael ᚋᚔᚉᚆᚓᚐᚂSep 9, 2025

@stooryduster @notjustbikes The owner's manual should state that too, in the manner of energy certificates on electrical appliances and government warnings on cigarettes.

Owners should be made complete a signed declaration that they understand they are 80% more likely to kill children.

Show threadDaarinSep 9, 2025
@baoigheallain @notjustbikes
Sadly, the solution for the parking space problem would be, making them bigger. Seen it too often.
Show threadNot Just Bikes 🇳🇱Sep 9, 2025

@daarin Yes, this is happening everywhere.

The most likely people to own these giant trucks are wealthy people who use them as status symbols. These people also have the most political influence.

So when their oversized SUVs don't fit in parking spaces, the city response is to change the guidelines for parking space design, rather than to ban or charge higher fees on the oversized vehicles. Every time.

Show threadReindeR RustemaSep 10, 2025

@notjustbikes @daarin In Amsterdam I see the pick-up truck variety of the big SUV mostly in the hands of construction workers coming from villages in the province.

The wealthy mostly prefer the Range Rover and Mercedes G-series for status I have the impression.

Show threadReindeR RustemaSep 11, 2025

@notjustbikes @daarin Ah, on the website of a reseller of Dodge RAM pickup trucks I see that it is mostly attractive for those with a business.

https://extremecars.nl

The monster is a cost of €1000 per month for your business. I assume that's an obstacle for individuals. But when the profits of the company go down, taxes also.

So the plumber, window cleaner or brick layer can even pretend to run a loss making business with such a monster. Pay less tax, but drive this!

What a scam.

Home - Extreme Cars

Show threadNotBlackMagicSep 9, 2025
@baoigheallain @notjustbikes You are assuming that traffic rules are being enforced.
Show threadFabrizio  Sep 9, 2025

@notjustbikes the only good place for a truck is countryside.

You go off-road, pick up a lot of vegetables and carry machineries.

Use them in cities is silly. Stop.

Show threadzedSep 9, 2025
@betelgeuse93 @notjustbikes even in the countryside they US ones are worse than the trucks we already, cause their beds are way too high and hard to load things into.
Show threadFabrizio  Sep 9, 2025
@zed @notjustbikes i talked about pick-up in general.
I never seen an american size, except Ford Ranger, that for us is big but for them I think is small.
Show threadSzymon Sokół 🇵🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦Sep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes …and this European car is already much more SUV-like than popular cars from a decade ago - compare it to, say, VW Golf or Seat Ibiza.
Show threadTina StormcallerSep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes Since they can’t past safety standards as cars should’ve only approved them as heavy goods vehicles so they need a speed limiter and a commercial vehicle licence required to drive them, thus making the bro-dozers undesirable to the kind of idiot that wants to bring them here
Show threadMarjorieRSep 9, 2025
@TinaStormcaller @notjustbikes I gather the majority of these monsters are already classified in the USA as light trucks even if they are SUVs (it allowed them to get away with being less energy efficient when the US government cared about such things) so presumably they would have to be treated as trucks (light commercial vehicles) in the EU too.
Some of them, at least, are heavy enough to be classed as HGVs (over 3.5 tonnes): The Rivian R1T weights 3.8t tonnes.
Show threadGabriele SveltoSep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes
Show threadCockneyLaurieSep 9, 2025

@notjustbikes
It's another madness of kowtowing to Trump and his stupidities

We need to tell him to bugger off

Show threadtomatohatSep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes I wish the taxes on vehicles were based on weight, that might help curb some of the demand for them. But that would never fly in NA for "attacking peoples' freedoms" or something I'm sure.
Show threadCriminySep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes Ban them, confiscate them, send them to Ukraine.
Show threaddragonfrogSep 9, 2025
@attans @notjustbikes a lot of them they don't want in Ukraine because there not actually very robust or well suited to rough terrain. It's just toughness aesthetics.
Show threadEric LawtonSep 9, 2025

@notjustbikes

Here's my car.

Not the gigantic Lincoln SUV.

Not the smaller red SUV behind it, but the even smaller blue hatchback between them. You can just make out my roof at the bottom of the SUV's window.

I need to get a periscope to be able to check for pedestrians or other cars when trying to exit parking spaces these days, I'm usually stuck between two behemoths.

Show threadPlinubius 🇪🇺Sep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes Yeah, we will be able to spot idiots from miles away. It will be really funny to watch those in the inner cities when they look for parking lots. I already suggest "Dude" as the nickname for those drivers. Like the figure Dude in Free Guy.
Show threaddigital_bohemianSep 9, 2025

@plinubius

Sorry, mate, but

@notjustbikes

Show threadPlinubius 🇪🇺Sep 10, 2025
@digital_bohemian ja, in Deiner Altersgruppe ;-) @notjustbikes
Show threaddigital_bohemianSep 10, 2025

@plinubius

You Frechdachs, you ;-).

@notjustbikes

Show threadG AllenSep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes I would love a good balanced story about the multiple layers that the US market went through to get here. As a driver of a 2 door mini in the US, I've done scary maneuvers to keep from being run over by drivers that literally could not see me behind the SUV in front of me and make their turn directly into where I would have been. There's definitely a "safe for me" escalation that's been going on with taller and taller. Then energy standard application being by weight. Sigh.
Show threadcmikSep 9, 2025
@notjustbikes Well good luck parking these in European streets. Even the current SUVs hardly make it. I simply hope that most people are not that stupid to buy a car that does not fit.
Show threadKevin RussellSep 9, 2025

@notjustbikes

I think if seen on the street they would be very unpopular. Very.

Show threadSpaceCheeseWizardSep 10, 2025

@notjustbikes I can't believe the EU is still cozying up to the United States with all the shit my country has been pulling lately.

There is literally, and not exaggerating, no reason for them to import these large, dangerous trucks.

Show threadEhay2kSep 10, 2025

@notjustbikes

You can bet that #Musk is behind this, to make the #Cybertruck legal as a passenger vehicle in all of Europe.

Still, very few will buy it. In part because it's not a good truck, in part because of the strong anti-fascist sentiment.

Show threadSoftwarewolfSep 10, 2025
@notjustbikes Trust me, a number of us in the US don't want them either. I miss the small trucks that were more utility than fashion statement. :/
Show threadZanSep 10, 2025

@notjustbikes I'd argue we don't want any vehicles other than public transportation, medical aid vehicles, firefighters and emergency goods deliveries (i.e. medicine) in the streets, but with the amount of relief these companies get, I think we're too far gone. 8')

This said, I see 2 or 3 of those overpriced coffins-on-wheels every day. I don't understand the use-cases for them in a heavily packed metropolitan/downtown area.

Show threadReindeR RustemaSep 11, 2025

@notjustbikes It seems that these pickup trucks are mostly registered in the name of small businesses. The (huge) cost (€1000 per month https://extremecars.nl) brings the profitability down.

Less profit, less taxes on that profit. While at the same time the 'cost' of driving such a truck is experienced as a perk for the window cleaner, brick layer, plumber and such.

I wonder if the tax authorities can come up with some bureaucratic rule to outlaw this. Can't think of anything, can you?

Home - Extreme Cars

Show threadMy name is GordoSep 11, 2025
@notjustbikes I don't know how dangerous the trucks themselves are, but as someone who lives and drives in a major Canadian city, I can tell you that the drivers of said trucks can be fairly dangerous. You know that "little big man" syndrome exhibited by teeny tiny dogs who think being feisty and extremely shrill will make up for their diminutive stature? It's like that, except it genuinely does make small men large, fast, and just as unlikely to use turn signals as before.
Show threadJúbilo MX (moved to @[email protected])Sep 14, 2025
@notjustbikes I don't want them in the Americas either... 😡
Show threadReindeR RustemaOct 22

@notjustbikes Your call is echoed by a coalition of major cities in Europe. And road safety organisations. And all relevant NGOs. Here is their letter to the European Commission https://archive.ph/Qb2Nn

Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, etc. The list goes on. It is just a very respectable and broad coalition.

Show threadReindeR RustemaOct 22
@notjustbikes Also note the sentence: "and that work to reform Individual Vehicle Approval be continued."
Show threadNot Just Bikes 🇳🇱Oct 23
@rrustema020 good!!
Show threadHazelCakesNov 7
@notjustbikes oof lots of us don’t want them in the us either, they’re a social scourge