The trend is that roads are becoming more dangerous in the US, with the cars being bigger as a major contributor.
People in US are fine with increasing casualties for some reason, and I’m glad that in EU the general consensus is to continue with keeping roads safer.
(/rant. Pickup trucks have a purpose, such as in low density rural areas. That’s not the case in Belgium, for instance. Either you need a van because it’s for work, or you rent a lightweight van on the few occasions you actually need to transport a lot of stuff.)
An EU directive implementing vehicle tax proportional to weight is urgent. Heavier cars pollute more, damage the road more, are much more dangerous for pedestrians and bicycles.
EU: Bans those trucks because they were created skirting regulations to the extreme
That you don't like how those have been implemented isn't the fault of a manufacturer.
Roads were never intended for people on flimsy two wheeled contraptions with nothing more than a polystyrene cap to protect them.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-pedestrians-and-cycli...
What's the point of these things? They're not useful for anything. They're horrible to drive, get through fuel like a burning oil well, can't tow, and can't carry anything.
If you need something to haul building materials around, get a van.
In the US, a sizeable % of pickups are equipped w/ dump &&|| stake beds for precisely this type of work.
(I’m not a landscaper, but they seem to pack in everything from hand tools to those petrol powered tiller & compacting tools)
Also for a lot of vehicles, a GVM/GCM upgrade is needed to be able to tow certain loads.
Not defending these large american trucks. I think there are valid use cases for them (in smaller bodies), but the majority of the ones I see driving around are just for peoples pleasure and not utility.
Compare that to these pickups which have neither the power nor the grip to get out of their own way.
I’m fine with that if US regulation was consistent with that commercial classification and they required a CDL to drive (and all the associated annual medical checks and zero BAC etc.)
If that consistency was there every manufacturer would immediately drop the commercial classification and figure out how to make their trucks satisfy the passenger classification in FMVSS.
Not a loophole. There are (broadly) eight different FMCSA classifications; and a CDL is usually required only when the GVWR is at or over ...26,000lbs. Everything below that is medium or light duty. Heavy-duty is the upper end of class 6 (think school busses), class 7 ( garbage trucks & cement mixers ) and class 8 (18-wheel semis).
One part of the regulatory/legislative system allows a vehicle to be classified as commercial (to get the benefits of looser regulation) but another part does not consider it a commercial vehicle (and it benefits from the looser regulations of a passenger vehicle).
Yes, there's too much ambiguity in the adjective 'commercial' used in multiple contexts in legislation.