There’s no place for American-style monster vehicles on UK roads

The Chelsea tractor brigade have nothing on the monster pick-up mob.

Vehicles like the Dodge Ram 1500 and the Chevrolet Silverado are increasingly making their way to Europe – with export numbers up by 150 per cent since 2019. These absurd trucks weigh as much as a Second World War-era tank and are longer than a giant anaconda.

In theory, they are too polluting to meet EU (and UK) regulations, but a loophole enables individuals to bring them in – some 5,000 in 2023. They are also far more likely than a regular car to cause serious injury to anyone they happen to be in collision with.

Quite what is the purpose of these trucks, I cannot fathom. They can’t possibly carry as big a load as a good, old-fashioned Transit van and they must be a nightmare to park in Tesco.

Perhaps it is simply an extension of the ongoing Americanisation of our roads, which already seem completely clogged by ever-bigger SUVs. Drivers of these monsters are always keen to talk about how they just want to keep their families safe – but presumably at the expense of everyone else’s. With even larger pick-ups now hurtling round the M25, it becomes a zero-sum game.

Then again, the safety thing is a bit of a red herring. Big cars – like sports cars – are a status symbol, or a compensatory mechanism. The owners of gigantic trucks, imported from the US at enormous expense, must have a lot to make up for.

Putting aside the pollution issues and the safety hypocrisy, the simple fact is that Britain’s infrastructure is not designed for huge and heavy cars. The M1 might just about cope with thousands of SUVs whizzing alongside the UK’s fleet of articulated lorries, but urban and suburban environments most decidedly do not.

In towns and cities, the drivers of big cars can perennially be seen peering over their dashboards, wondering if there might be a child trying to cross the narrow junction in front of them. And because roads in most built-up areas have been there for donkey’s years, it turns out that on-street parking leaves wide SUVs and pick-ups at risk of having their wing mirrors pranged (probably by other SUVs and pick-ups).

Then again, in my experience, the solution SUV owners have found to this problem is simply to park all over the pavement. Never mind if residents can’t get past as they struggle up the hill with heavy shopping bags, or if parents have to push their buggies into the road to get by.

And then there is Britain’s trouble with potholes. In the last financial year, it has been estimated that councils in England and Wales had to make 2 million pothole repairs. Increasingly extreme weather has played its part, as has a lack of investment, but the increasing width and tonnage of domestic vehicles is also to blame.

The irony is that some drivers argue they need an all-terrain motor because roads in semi-rural areas can be tricky to navigate – but the damage caused by those very vehicles make them all the more hazardous for everyone else driving standard cars.

Fundamentally, nobody actually needs either a monster pick-up or an SUV – even well-paid accountants and lawyers who have to drive all the way from the home counties to their offices in London. These vehicles are polluting, they damage the roads, and they are a manifest danger to other road users. The government’s green agenda alone should be enough justification to whack up taxes on the most gas-guzzling of these beasts. But it would also be perfectly reasonable to increase road taxes on vehicles by weight, given our problems with pitted asphalt and cracked concrete.

You might wonder if I’m just bitter because I drive a Ford Fiesta the colour of dehydrated urine. And it is perfectly true that I do not particularly love my car. But Britain is a small country in which modest cars were once enough for almost everyone. America might salivate over its Chevies, but that’s no reason for the UK to follow suit – on the contrary in fact. We should give SUVs the heave-ho; and tell monster pick-ups to truck off.