T&E: ‘20% more dangerous and gas-guzzling RAM pickups imported in EU’

According to the environmental organization Transport & Environment (T&E), the number of dangerous Dodge Rams on European roads is “disturbingly high and continues to rise”. In 2023, about 5,000 new Dodge Rams were imported into Europe, up 20% from the previous year. There are now at least 20,000 Dodge Rams on European roads.

The EU has strict vehicle standards to reduce road vehicles’ danger and limit emissions. However, dangerous and polluting US pickup trucks, such as Dodge Rams, are not required to comply with such standards, as they are imported through a back-door channel called ‘Individual Vehicle Approval’ or IVA.

Environmental and safety regulations

“IVA allows vehicles to bypass basic EU environmental and safety regulations for cars, and the system is now used to import large numbers of US pickup trucks,” T&E explains. “These vehicles are not required to comply with the 2019 EU General Safety Regulation, on-road tests for air pollution, or the EU car and van CO2 standards.”

A coalition of consumer, safety, and environmental groups, including T&E, has written to the European Commission, calling on the EU’s executive body to close the loophole that allows these dangerous and heavily polluting vehicles onto European roads.

‘Monsters’

James Nix, vehicles manager at T&E: “Pickup trucks like the Dodge Ram have no place on European streets. They’re dangerous and polluting. […] The EU needs to get those monsters off the road.”

Safety features, like automated emergency brakes or improved crash protection for vulnerable road users, are mandatory for all newly sold cars and vans from 7 July 2024 but are not required for Dodge RAMs and other IVA-imported vehicles.

Three times more likely to kill

A pickup truck is almost three times more likely to kill a vulnerable road user than a regular car. Its volume and height are often fatal in a collision. T&E earlier drew attention to the trend of increasing car volumes.

The average car width in Europe increased from 170,5 cm in 2001 to 180,2 cm in 2020. The Dodge Ram, for instance, is more than two meters wide – 2,085 m, to be precise – overshooting the 1,80 m-wide parking spaces by almost 30 cm. Regarding their polluting character, a Dodge RAM’s emissions are three to nine times higher than the average for newly sold cars.

The EU’s laxity in this contrasts sharply with some leading cities’ initiatives, like Paris, Lyon, and Koblenz, which have decided to vary parking charges by vehicle weight or size.