Keep these Stupid American Trucks out of Europe

0:00 American SUVs and pickup trucks are dangerous,

0:03 and there is irrefutable evidence of this.

0:06 Their extreme weight and stiff frames make

0:08 them dangerous to other vehicles in a crash,

0:10 which has turned road safety into an arms race

0:13 that favours those who can afford the biggest and heaviest vehicle.

0:16 And their blunt, vertical front-ends,

0:18 designed entirely for aesthetics, are more dangerous to pedestrians.

0:23 When a person is hit by a car, they’re likely to land on the hood.

0:26 Which would not be particularly enjoyable.

0:28 But a person hit by one of these trucks is

0:31 much more likely to be knocked back and impact the ground,

0:35 or be run over by the truck.

0:37 Which is why research has found that people are 44% more likely to die when

0:41 hit by an SUV or light truck than they are if hit by a car,

0:46 for children that number was found to be 82% higher,

0:49 and for children under 10, it’s 130%.

0:52 And pickup trucks are even worse.

0:55 This 2023 Belgian study found that a pedestrian or cyclist hit by a pickup

0:59 had an almost 200% higher risk of fatal injury than if hit by a car.

1:04 What’s worse is that light trucks are also

1:06 more likely to crash in the first place.

1:09 Due to their heavy weight and high centre of gravity,

1:11 SUVs have worse handling than a typical car,

1:15 and they have longer braking distances too.

1:17 And their high centre of gravity also means that they

1:20 are much more likely to roll over, even at low speeds.

1:24 Rollover deaths in light trucks were a major

1:27 problem in the early 2000s and in response,

1:30 automobile manufacturers started making their vehicles stronger to avoid

1:33 crushing the occupants in case of a rollover.

1:36 A major side-effect of this however is that the pillars of the vehicle,

1:39 such as this A-pillar, have become much larger, which reduces visibility.

1:43 And visibility was already terrible on these trucks because,

1:47 due to their high height and excessively large hoods,

1:50 they have insanely huge front blind spots.

1:53 This NBC news investigation showed that nine children can sit in front

1:57 of a typical American SUV and be completely invisible to the driver.

2:01 Which is why there has been a steep increase

2:04 in what are known as “frontover” and “backover” accidents,

2:06 someone hit or run over by a truck moving at slow speeds,

2:11 simply because the driver could not see them.

2:14 And it’s often a parent running over their own child in their driveway.

2:19 Understandably, these kinds of vehicles can’t pass EU safety regulations,

2:23 which is why they’re illegal in Europe, and thankfully they can’t be sold here.

2:28 Or at least, they’re not supposed to be.

2:31 Due to a regulation loophole, thousands of these dangerous American trucks are

2:35 being imported into the European Union each year,

2:38 bypassing safety and emissions standards, and making our roads less safe.

2:42 And even as road safety advocates and city councils across

2:45 Europe are trying get the EU to plug these loopholes,

2:49 Recent trade talks with the US

2:51 threaten to nullify vehicle safety regulations completely,

2:54 which would open the floodgates to these stupid American trucks in Europe.

3:04 [NJB Intro] In October, seventy-five European organisations,

3:06 including the City of Amsterdam,

3:07 where I live, signed a joint letter to the EU parliament entitled,

3:11 “The intention to accept lower US vehicle standards

3:14 risks increasing deaths and pollution on EU roads”.

3:18 Their concern is justified.

3:20 In the EU, road deaths have decreased by 36% since 2010.

3:25 But in the US, road deaths have increased by 30% during the same time period.

3:30 What’s worse is that pedestrian deaths

3:32 in the US have increased by 80% since 2010,

3:36 and they are now at the highest level they’ve been since the 1980s.

3:41 Meanwhile EU pedestrian deaths have dropped 37% since 2010.

3:45 There are several cities in the EU

3:48 that have achieved huge reductions in vehicle fatalities, for example Helsinki,

3:52 which has had zero road deaths over the past twelve months.

3:56 They achieved this through many of the things I talk about on this channel,

4:00 such as safer street design, more automated enforcement systems,

4:03 and most importantly, lower speed limits.

4:05 Which is why many municipalities, including Amsterdam,

4:08 have implemented a city-wide default speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour.

4:14 But even outside of these progressive cities,

4:16 there has also been a general steady reduction

4:19 in road deaths across the entire EU over

4:21 the past fifteen years and the main contributor

4:24 to that is improved safety regulations for motor vehicles.

4:28 This letter to the EU parliament comes in response to the recent

4:32 trade talks underway between the United States and the European Union.

4:36 As part of a joint statement published in August,

4:39 the EU said that, “with respect to automobiles,

4:41 the United States and the European Union intend to accept and provide mutual

4:45 recognition to each other’s standards.” “Mutual recognition”

4:48 is a fundamental principle of EU policy.

4:51 It is how a product certified in one jurisdiction

4:54 can be sold in all other jurisdictions throughout the EU,

4:57 and it’s a necessary component of the EU common market.

5:01 For example, the Good Manufacturing Practice or “GMP” legislation means

5:05 that a drug manufacturer in the US only needs to be

5:09 inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration and then

5:13 that drug can be sold in the EU without re-certification.

5:17 This makes sense, as it’s an effective way to streamline regulations,

5:21 and it works very well,

5:22 provided that all jurisdictions involved have a similar certification

5:26 process for the product that is being mutually recognised.

5:30 But that is not the case for motor vehicles.

5:33 EU safety standards for automobiles are significantly

5:35 higher than they are in the US,

5:38 both in terms of what is tested but also who does the testing.

5:42 US automotive safety testing focuses primarily

5:45 on occupant safety in typical crash scenarios.

5:48 One of the only tests that is more strict

5:50 in the US than in Europe is rollover safety tests,

5:52 due to the entirely manufactured problem of excessive rollover crashes

5:56 as American manufacturers started promoting light trucks in the 90s.

6:00 But if these stupid American trucks weren’t so

6:02 top heavy and regular heavy in the first place,

6:05 these tests wouldn’t be so important,

6:07 and engineering resources could go into other safety features.

6:10 As a result of these testing differences, EU cars are safer than US cars.

6:15 A 2015 report found that a typical EU car on US roads would

6:20 have about a 33% lower risk of serious injury than a typical US model.

6:25 And this doesn’t take into account

6:27 recent improvements in Euro NCAP safety standards.

6:30 Most notably, in 2020 when they introduced

6:33 the “mobile progressive deformable barrier test” for front-end crashes.

6:36 It took me a couple of takes to get that test name right,

6:40 but basically, Instead of crashing a car against a solid wall,

6:43 this test uses a crash between the vehicle and a moving

6:46 trolley to replicate the other car involved in the crash.

6:49 An important aspect of this test is how

6:52 the vehicle manages to share the crash energy.

6:54 In short, if a vehicle is found to be more dangerous to other vehicles,

6:59 it will lose points off of its safety rating.

7:02 Which makes sense.

7:03 Vehicles shouldn’t be able to pass safety tests

7:06 by making the roads more dangerous for everyone else.

7:09 This is a very common theme when comparing EU to US vehicle safety tests.

7:14 US testing is myopically focused on the vehicle and its occupants.

7:18 While Europe tests not just the vehicle,

7:21 but also how it interacts with other road users.

7:24 Which is why the Euro NCAP safety rating has four categories,

7:27 one of them being focused entirely on vulnerable road users.

7:31 Part of this testing involves pedestrian impacts,

7:34 and vehicles are scored on how they impact different parts of a person’s body.

7:39 These kinds of tests have been around for a long time,

7:42 which is why it’s common for cars in Europe

7:45 to have hoods with explosive bolts that pop up on impact,

7:48 or even pedestrian airbags, to protect people hit by cars.

7:52 Notice how on these Tesla cars the hood has

7:55 popped up before the dummy head hits the car.

7:57 They don’t do this on their American

8:00 models… because nobody is making them do it.

8:03 The NHTSA has a proposal for future pedestrian safety tests,

8:06 but today vehicles sold in the US are not required

8:09 to pass any kind of pedestrian safety tests at all,

8:12 which is why their vehicles have been allowed to become

8:16 so ridiculously dangerous to anybody outside of a car.

8:19 But all of that aside,

8:21 even if a crash test in the US is reasonably equivalent to a test in the EU,

8:26 there’s still a massive fundamental difference:

8:29 In the EU, automobile manufacturers are required

8:32 to pass a "Type-Approval" process by independent

8:35 public authorities to certify a specific vehicle

8:38 model before it can be released to market.

8:41 While in the US, all crashworthiness and compliance

8:44 tests are self-certified by the car manufacturer.

8:49 The NHTSA does some spot-checks,

8:51 but the vast majority of motor vehicles enter the US market with a “trust me,

8:56 bro” approach to safety.

8:58 And if you don’t think automobile manufacturers

9:00 are doing everything they can to cut

9:03 corners on those self-certification tests Then I have a Ford Pinto to sell you.

9:08 Incidentally, the Pinto scandal was likely the inspiration

9:11 for the narrator’s job in Fight Club:

9:13 [Take the number of] [vehicles in the field,

9:16 a] [multiply it by the] [probable rate of failure,

9:19 b] [then multiply the result] [by the average] [out of court settlement,

9:23 c] [a times b times c equals x] [if x

9:27 is less than] [the cost of a recall…] [we don’t

9:31 do one] I also think that the already shocking pedestrian

9:35 fatality statistics out of the US are understating the dangers,

9:38 because the US has managed to significantly reduce

9:42 their pedestrian fatalities by just… having fewer pedestrians.

9:45 Can’t have pedestrian deaths if there’s no pedestrians.

9:49 Checkmate, Europe!

9:49 Outside of a small number of urban cores,

9:53 the number of people who walk in American cities is vanishingly small,

9:57 and this is hiding how bad the situation has become.

10:01 But people actually walk in Europe,

10:04 so if these trucks become common here it will be a bloodbath,

10:08 and for no good reason.

10:10 So you might be wondering, who benefits from this trade deal,

10:13 and why is the EU considering it at all?

10:16 Well, first are the American motor vehicle companies who

10:19 would love to sell their high-margin vehicles in Europe.

10:22 The only reason why these vehicles became popular in the US in the first place

10:27 is because automobile manufacturers realised they could bypass

10:30 regulations by selling work vehicles as consumer vehicles.

10:33 Then they funnelled those profits into marketing

10:36 to drive demand for these impractical vehicles.

10:40 Americans didn’t love trucks naturally, they were advertised into it.

10:44 If you want to learn more,

10:46 the history of this is well documented in the book High and Mighty,

10:49 written by a Detroit automobile journalist who was writing

10:52 about the car industry when all of this happened.

10:56 American automakers would love to do the same thing in Europe,

10:59 if only they would eliminate those pesky safety regulations.

11:02 But the real push for this trade deal comes from within the EU itself,

11:08 mostly from German automobile manufacturers.

11:10 In April the US government applied an arbitrary 25

11:13 percent tariff on all cars imported from the European Union,

11:16 which affected any European automobile manufacturer

11:19 who relied heavily on the US market.

11:21 In a recent press release, Volkswagen said that US tariffs would cost

11:25 the company up to 5 billion euros this year,

11:28 and that tariffs have reduced their year-over-year profit by 58%.

11:32 So they are desperate to do literally

11:35 anything they can to have those tariffs reduced,

11:38 even if it means risking the lives of millions of Europeans.

11:42 Plus I’m sure they are salivating at the idea of importing

11:45 their high-margin foreign brands into the EU

11:48 while bypassing safety and emissions regulations.

11:51 As part of these negotiations,

11:52 the EU was able to get the Trump administration to reduce

11:55 the tariff rate from 25% to 15%, at least for now.

11:59 Of course, I don’t know why anybody would trust

12:03 any trade deals out of the US these days.

12:06 The other week Trump arbitrarily increased tariffs

12:08 on all products from Canada by 10 percent,

12:11 simply because the Ontario government aired

12:13 a commercial on right-wing news channels

12:15 that was literally just a segment of a Ronald Regan speech about tariffs.

12:20 It’s not even supposed to be legal

12:23 for a US president to arbitrarily impose tariffs like

12:25 this, but it’s very clear that the American

12:28 government is no longer following their own laws anyway,

12:31 so none of that matters anymore.

12:33 So remind me again why Europe should be willing to cripple

12:36 our vehicle safety regulations for a country which has proven to be lawless,

12:40 arbitrary, and vindictive?

12:42 And it’s not like pickup trucks are fundamentally illegal in Europe

12:45 or something… they just need to pass EU safety testing.

12:50 Which is completely reasonable.

12:51 If you think signing a deal like

12:53 this with the US would be disastrous for Europe,

12:56 I’ll put a link to a site where you

12:58 can find and contact your member of European parliament,

13:00 as well as links to some of the advocacy

13:03 groups who are fighting this proposed trade deal.

13:05 And if you’d like to learn more about American light trucks,

13:08 I have a previous video about how they became popular,

13:11 and the damage they’re causing in North America.

13:15 Thanks for watching.

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