original post: https://feddit.org/post/10733288
Source: stux@mstdn.social
"This is why we don't need #US #cars in #Europe"
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
1338 points (98.7% liked)
Fuck Cars
11348 readers
136 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
These cars should be banned in Europe. If your car doesn't fit into a parking spot, it's too big.
They don't even fit in the parking spaces in the United States. I don't know how many times I've had to sit in the parking lot for 10 minutes waiting for some dipshit to figure out how to maneuver his monster vehicle into or out of a space.
Guess it depends on how you live. I'm over here like "how do you have spots that don't fit trucks? Every other car on the road is that size"
Context, I live in Texas.
Also also, I've been to the Netherlands and those spots in towns are tight fits for a normal car. Even a large full size German sedan probably wouldn't fit. But that's fine because almost everyone parks outside of town and uses public transportation or walks or bikes. You basically can't drive around in town. This truck driver is just an idiot.
Not so sure about that, given that I'm pretty sure there's a full sized Mercedes in the back row, and what to me looks like a Volvo in the middle slot, facing the camera.
I'm all for banning pick-up trucks, but @neclimdul has a point. The Mercedes you point at in the back row is literally the smallest Mercedes (A-class) and the Volvo in front row is an older full-sized wagon, which isn't big in todays standards. A "full size" today, is definitely closer to 5m or even a little over (BMW 5-series). A mid-sized like a C class or 3-series is 4,80. Cars have grown a lot over the years!
But where @neclimdul makes a good point, if you take the largest sedans manufacturers offer, they won't fit the spot either. For instance: Mercedes S-class is 5,20m long (for the regular version).
Still, the pick-up trucks like pictured are way bigger, for reference a RAM is 5,80m. So in this example, if we'd parked a Mercedes S-class in the same spot, it will cross the line as well, but the tram would still have enough clearance to pass.
I guess my knowledge of cars must have atrophied...
Second that. I drive a Seat Alhambra, and parking in Rotterdam is a pain in the whatever. We have turned to leave the car on the hotel parking lot and use the tram, which, incidentally, seems to be the only vehicle the cyclists actually respect, even when they basically ignore all signs and traffic lights.
Never heard of this vehicle before. Now I want one. Wonder how much it'd cost to import it to Canada....
I use both the ability to fold over the seats and have 2m³ booth (when I do the St. Nicolas tour, or when I move models to and from exhibitions), as well as the complete foldout to seven seats (although I have only used up to six so far).
It's a great car. And it can tow up to 1.8t in Europe, too.
Yea, I was going to say this. We have to park in the back of a lot with the tailgate over a curb to the truck fits into a space.
@Wilco @Oyml77 Most tailgates are removable. It would be a shame if it fell off and was never found.
Oh no. Someone gets caught on camera stealing a tailgate and insurance gives the truck owner a brand new factory original one and then sues the thief to recoup the expense.
The horror.
Ain't no one gonna steal a 55 pound tailgate.
https://abc7.com/post/costa-mesa-police-seeing-spike-thieves-stealing-tailgates/15003606/
Fuck that. Those cars should be banned here in america.
How else are they gonna haul their 3 bags of groceries AND own the libs?
Don't forget the most important thing you can do with a Ram: mod the diesel engine to spit out even more black smoke than normal while surviving smashing into something when you're drink driving on a residential road.
Ban track yem this side of Proxima Centauri
Owners of such cars should be required to take extra training about where they can operate them, restricting them like large commercial vehicles (which these try to be)
Let them have them; don't let them drive them in tight urban areas, don't let them park in parking places that can't fit them
Australia is much like America with places designed for motor vehicles. So American light trucks fit here, but many of our carparks do not allow vehicles longer than 5m to enter
Not car anymore, it's truck.
A brand new Ford Transit Custom is just over 5m, there's probably a few station wagons that are the same.
One of the many points that prevent cybertrucks from European roads is actually the requirement for a commercial truckers licence to operate it.
Yeah this is the thing.
If someone can make a case for actually needing the capabilities of this vehicle... fine. That doesn't mean you can just park wherever you want and complain that the bays are too small though.
They say everything is bigger in Texas. Apparently not the parking spaces. These ugly trucks don't even fit in parking lots.
They're not a car, they're a truck, and can do things no passenger vehicle can do.
Trying to park a light truck in the middle of a city is entirely on the driver though.
The space in the back is smaller than the trunk a station wagon usually has. So all they can do is tow something, which any run off the mill SUV can also do. For the vast majority of actual work, we tend to use Sprinters in Europe. These trucks are completely useless here.
Vehicles like this are typically a "one Tonne" pickup, meaning they can carry a metric tonne or more in the bed. They can also tow huge amounts, 4.5 tonne or more often.
Whether the owner actually uses that capacity is another question, but they can do things no SUV or station wagon can.
The thing is that large vans can also carry all that stuff and they can lock it up, protect it from the elements, and access it more easily because the floor is lower than a truck bed. They can also carry a wider variety of things since the inside of a work van is much longer and has walls to support various items. The entire benefit of a truck bed compared to a van can be defeated easily by a laying down a tarp(say, if you’re bringing in gravel) except for if you’re trying to tow a fifth-wheel or have converted the truck to be a tow-truck. I guess you could make an argument for carrying a single, small hay bale but I c’mon that’s like an American saying they need forty-five guns in case the government goes crazy while actively electing the craziest government officials; it’s clear they don’t know what they talking about and just think they’re neat but can’t simply admit it.
I watched coworkers here in Canada buy two F-150s after they attended a single track day for motorcycles. The coworker who raced regularly, though, drove a little Ford Transit and the coworker who had a small race team and actually built parts for motoGP teams had a Mercedes Metris. Watching people struggle to get a little Ninja 250 out of the F-150 was hilarious and getting my Ninja 1000, a couple hundred pounds heavier, into the Metris one time was super easy. They could have just bought a trailer like my dad did and which we towed with a Subaru Outback, later a VW Golf, and now a Subaru STi.
Trucks are largely worthless and the people who buy them very rarely use them for anything they are the only option for, often using them for things they are, in fact, greatly ill-suited to handle.
I own a 2008 Dodge Sprinter. You can put two full size round hay bales in the thing and close it, or about 15-20 of the rectangular hay bales.
Trucks only have the advantage of the ability to install and use a fifth wheel towing mount.
I’m imagining that actually getting those large haybales in there is probably a whole thing, no? Either way, the little ones would be fine for sure like you say and I’m willing to bet that even farmers aren’t exactly hauling any of it around in their trucks anyway.
Just pick it up with a special forklift attachment, and load it in the back doors
A VW transporter can carry 800kg, a Mercedes Sprinter up to 1.5t and their lengths are not absolutely absurd:
(Pictured is the VW but Mercedes is roughly the same length)
The only thing left then is the towing weight, that's limited to 2 tons for the Volkswagen, same for the Mercedes Sprinter. But I'd assume that usually people towing more than that in Europe would go for a semi truck anyway.
What are people in the US towing that weighs that much regularly?
Boats and caravans, same reason the most popular new vehicle where I live is the Ford Ranger.
Also, the person I replied to was talking about station wagons, which most definitely cannot carry 1.5 tonnes.