Have you been to Europe? Have you walked the streets of Paris?
The US was built with enough space being everywhere. American roads are wider, cities are mostly built like square-grids of roads built in a time when cats existed whereas European cities emerged in the middle ages. They’re tightly packed with little extra space.
Sometimes (very rarely) here there are old Cadillacs that can be rented for weddings. Seeing one of these cars on the street is an unreal experience. They’re just so huge. They don’t fit on the streets here - and those are cars from the 60s or 70s. Everything seems tiny compared to them.
From a European perspective it’s really stupid to build such large vehicles as driving and parking it is much more complicated when everything is build for small cars.
Now that SUVs are becoming popular here too it’s just a really annoying. Less parking space per vehicle etc.
On cities like Paris - one of the tightest city on Europe this is just annoying.
And i haven’t even written about fuel consumption.
Paris has had huge problems with smog in recent years.
I haven’t been to Western Europe but I do live in Singapore with roads that I would say are quite narrow and SUVs aren’t that rare here either. So I can’t say I really understand entirely but I think I do get what you mean.
True, lots of places (but I suppose maybe not everywhere) have really wide roads with tons of lanes so it’s easy to drive around with SUV’s, but this is generally not true in Europe where, even in large cities, often roads/lanes are narrower, making SUV’s unwieldy for those driving around them.
Then there’s the pollution aspect which I can’t address, but I imagine SUV’s pollute more on average than other cars (and probably Europe is currently being a bit more stingy on allowing this)
the onyl reason they exist in the US is because a regulations loophole.
The EU doesn’t have that loophole, so SUVs don’t even have that reason to exist. Which you can see, as SUVs are super rare in the EU, while they top all car sales ranks in the US in the last couple years
I’m not really understanding, what makes the US different in this regard?
Have you been to Europe? Have you walked the streets of Paris? The US was built with enough space being everywhere. American roads are wider, cities are mostly built like square-grids of roads built in a time when cats existed whereas European cities emerged in the middle ages. They’re tightly packed with little extra space. Sometimes (very rarely) here there are old Cadillacs that can be rented for weddings. Seeing one of these cars on the street is an unreal experience. They’re just so huge. They don’t fit on the streets here - and those are cars from the 60s or 70s. Everything seems tiny compared to them. From a European perspective it’s really stupid to build such large vehicles as driving and parking it is much more complicated when everything is build for small cars. Now that SUVs are becoming popular here too it’s just a really annoying. Less parking space per vehicle etc. On cities like Paris - one of the tightest city on Europe this is just annoying. And i haven’t even written about fuel consumption. Paris has had huge problems with smog in recent years.
And we’re paying for that, too.
The Ugly, Dangerous, and Inefficient Stroads found all over the US & Canada - Not Just Bikes
Why link the paywalled version when it’s on youtube?
https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?si=9Vpg_gBgQQtu7n9_
First video on Nebula is free, and it has no ads.
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I haven’t been to Western Europe but I do live in Singapore with roads that I would say are quite narrow and SUVs aren’t that rare here either. So I can’t say I really understand entirely but I think I do get what you mean.
The US is built more for SUVs than places outside it, so they make a little bit more sense than in places like Paris.
But only a little bit more sense. They’re still obnoxious and far too big in the US.
True, lots of places (but I suppose maybe not everywhere) have really wide roads with tons of lanes so it’s easy to drive around with SUV’s, but this is generally not true in Europe where, even in large cities, often roads/lanes are narrower, making SUV’s unwieldy for those driving around them.
Then there’s the pollution aspect which I can’t address, but I imagine SUV’s pollute more on average than other cars (and probably Europe is currently being a bit more stingy on allowing this)
the onyl reason they exist in the US is because a regulations loophole.
The EU doesn’t have that loophole, so SUVs don’t even have that reason to exist. Which you can see, as SUVs are super rare in the EU, while they top all car sales ranks in the US in the last couple years
SUVs are not super rare in the EU (unfortunately). They are pretty common in cities and cause a lot of accidents.
SUVs and crossovers are most popular cars in Europe.
Here’s a French source, coincidentally: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2023/09/14/suvs-now-dominate-european-car-market_6135326_19.html
Til that model y is a suv.
You didn’t notice until now?
Just looks like a slightly raised sedan to me. Shrug
I don’t think you are right on SUVs not being a thing here. What is the legal loophole in the US about?
This covers the whole thing in detail, but there are some exceptions to light trucks in the Us that also applies to SUVs for some reason
https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?si=i7n-KxW7LaXXrmXf
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/jN7mSXMruEo?si=i7n-KxW7LaXXrmXf
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.