GroenLinks Rotterdam wants to ban pick-ups from residential areas

In the Netherlands you don’t exactly stumble over the pick-ups, but they are still quite popular among contractors, for example. A pick-up like a Ford F-150 is somewhat out of place among regular traffic with its size, but also with the size of the fuel engine it contains. Two things that are apparently a thorn in the side of GroenLinks Rotterdam. In questions to the council of B&W van Rotterdam therefore directs the group towards a ban on pick-ups in residential areas. It provides several arguments for this.

For example, according to GL, pick-ups are dangerous for children in particular: “American research into ‘The Front Blind Zone’ – the blind spot – shows that as many as thirteen children can sit in front of a pick-up truck on the street before a driver notices this. Many parents are therefore concerned about pickup trucks in their residential areas.” A pick-up would also take up too much space in, for example, public parking spaces: “The APV states that it is prohibited to park a vehicle longer than 6 meters or higher than 2.4 meters on the road in front of homes or commercial buildings. Dodge RAM 1500 (2022), which is increasingly driving in Rotterdam, is 2,084 mm wide and 6,142 mm long – without a tow bar. Parking spaces in Rotterdam are on average 5 meters long. Large vehicles therefore occupy 2 parking spaces as standard.”

According to GroenLinks, it is not only about safety, but also about air quality. According to the faction, this is also at issue because of the large fuel engines of such pick-ups. The GroenLinks faction therefore asks the Municipal Executive whether it can map out what influence ‘the growth of the number of large vehicles such as pick-ups and SUVs has on air quality in Rotterdam’. In addition to owners of pick-ups, people with a large SUV may also fear a critical eye from GL Rotterdam. The group is silent in all languages ​​about private large delivery vans and passenger buses.