A 92% increase of a small number is still small, the number of electric vechicle has seen a far greater increase.
>menacing vehicles
Some people need to get a grip
Quagers on
This is in particular due to a tax dodge which makes them VED free, government tried to close the loophole last year but backed down (as always).
*Edit: to avoid 50 more posts telling me Im wrong. Until last year they were commercially flat rated for VED and exempt from BIK rules as a company car.*
*Last year the govt. Closed the BIK loophole. However they remain at the commercil flat rate of VED rather than being changed based on emissions like normal cars, making them much cheaper than they would otherwise be. They also may be exempt from the luxury vehicle tax.*
Yeah, uh, these small trucks are used as wheel chocks by full sized US trucks like the Ford 150, Dodge Ram etc. It’s always the people who have never stepped outside who get their opinions broadcast, isn’t it?
Edit: Let’s get some figures:
Ford F-150
• Width: ~2030 mm (79.9 in) 
• Length: 5884 – 6184 mm (~232 in max)
• Sold in 2025: ~620,850 in the US, 0 in UK (US’s best selling truck)
Ford Ranger
• Width: ~1918 – 2032 mm (75.5 – 80.1 in) 
• Length: ~5370 – 5470 mm (211.4 – 215.4 in)
• Sold in 2025: ~56,019 in the US, 17,462 in UK (UK’s best selling truck)
Audi A6 for comparison
• Width: ~1886 mm (74.3 in) 
• Length: ~4939 mm (194.4 in)
So we can see what a “US-style” truck actually is, and how the tiny weeny trucks is Brits get upset about compare to something we don’t look twice at
SevenNites on
These are better than Tesla’s that fund Elon Musk fascist platform, X.
IrishMilo on
This article is nonsense. It’s saying that the doubling of US style pickups has doubled and that they now roam our city streets… in reality it’s counting all pickups, and shows no evidence that they’re more present in cities.
What they aren’t saying is that in the last 10 years there’s been an influx of high capability, low cost pick ups like Dacia and D-Max (neither American in manufacturing or style) that make for great utility vehicles, and probably replaced utility SUVs or micro vans. Also completely ignores the fact that SUVs have rebranded in the last 10 years and now cost considerably more.
It’s actually outrageous that someone has been paid real money to write an article about there being 300k more pick ups on the road and has provided zero analysis.
ken-doh on
Small penis coping syndrome has spread from the US.
Mimicking-hiccuping on
What makes a pickup an American style? Feckless writing, that is
AltoCumulus15 on
Everyone I know who owns a pickup and isn’t a farmer is an arsehole, and clearly compensating for their small manhood.
MrLubricator on
Mental that they are allowed. They dont meet our safety requirements and so shouldn’t be allowed on our roads.
Bigtallanddopey on
One thing I doubt they have factored into this, is the decline of the land rover being used as a vehicle in rural areas. A lot of farmers no longer use the defender as their main vehicle, as they are simply priced out of it. The new defender starts at around £60k, a new Ford ranger starts at around £30k. Many people living rurally, are going for that cheaper option.
It won’t be the whole story, but it will be a decent part of it.
ApprehensiveDare2649 on
I don’t see them as any more of a problem than the huge amounts of suvs on the road nowadays.
It’s slightly crazy to we aren’t taxing SUVs more given the push to be more environmentally friendly.
Letting more people buy large vehicles than they need seems counterproductive.
phild1979 on
Sensationalist headline really(shocker for the guardian) . 300,000 over 12 years isn’t that big of a jump. The ford ranger is still the most common and we’ve had that since 1998.
KeegsNW on
Easy fix to ban street parking for vehicles over a certain size. Give exception to work vans during 9-5 monday to friday.
Sunshinetrooper87 on
Time to bring in additional parking charges for these twat mobiles. Ruddy annoying watching them eat up parking spaces and be a general liability.
Still-Status7299 on
Weve got a LHD behemoth in our town, looks like some sort of import. Its a stupid idea since most of our rural roads are narrow
Aggravating_Speed665 on
We should start a luddite-esk movement to rid the country of them.
ThatIestyn on
Its those Ford Raptors. Ridiculous size for a vehicle. City’s are least concern. I live in a small town and see loads of them, roads where 2 cars can fit now have to stop to let these arseholes through.
One blocked the entire road outside my sons school because it tried to turn down a side street and there was a car parked near the junction. Even an SUV could have made the turn but this massive thing couldnt and left the back end in the road. Took them 10 minutes to move during drop off time.
Inside they arent even that spacious, its height and the trailer bed, two things that dont really make any difference
greenpowerman99 on
To be fair, the smaller pickup trucks you see in the UK are taxed very heavily in the USA so you hardly see any in the US.
True US style pickup trucks are still quite rare in the UK because they are too big and use too much fuel…
ashyjay on
With the person quoted at the end. I wonder if they have a crossover which are just as bad.
Primary_Employ_1798 on
You know, almost everyone in the UK is a landscaper so they need them everywhere 🤡
Caveman-Dave722 on
300,000 extra trucks, it’s a none story.
Electric vehicles weigh 2000kg
The dramatic 98% growth is a telegraph/mail clickbait headline
st1nglikeabeeee on
If they werent unreliable as fuck Id love a Ford Raptor.
callumjm95 on
The pickups quoted in the article aren’t even ‘American’. The Ranger, L200 and Hilux are all smaller pickups that have been sold here for decades. Most are smaller than a Transit. It’s not like there’s been a sudden influx of F150s and RAM15000s.
Fair-Damage645 on
They’re tiny cock wagons. Driven by those in desperate need of feeling bigger everyone else.
Avionykx on
I’d absolutely love a full size US pickup. I have a few hobbies it’d be perfectly suited for but I get by with my current car just fine.
The reason I’d want one though, is have you seen the size of the inside of those things?
I went to the US and hired one to drive Route 66, at the time in the UK I had a very large car by our standards but those pickups are huge. I genuinely couldn’t touch my partners shoulder from the drivers seat, the centre console had so much room for drinks, phone charging and what not.
I regularly visit a friend in Scotland and driving from the South Coast with a car and 4 people everyone would have so much more room – as well as the bed full of all the camping and other stuff.
Yes it’d be a nightmare on most roads day to day and it’d never get parked but the idea of having more room in the car really appeals to me.
Thestickleman on
They’re not really US style but…. I very much so like haveing a truck
Personal_Director441 on
not being funny but the use my stepdad in Canada gets out of his old F150 i wish i had one, that being said their infrastructure is set up for them, massive wide roads, massive wide car parks, everything has a car park, we in with our tiny 1950’s road networks are not, also the massive SUV’s that seem to plague school drop offs are not much better judging by their drivers ability (or lack of it) to park.
27 Comments
A 92% increase of a small number is still small, the number of electric vechicle has seen a far greater increase.
>menacing vehicles
Some people need to get a grip
This is in particular due to a tax dodge which makes them VED free, government tried to close the loophole last year but backed down (as always).
*Edit: to avoid 50 more posts telling me Im wrong. Until last year they were commercially flat rated for VED and exempt from BIK rules as a company car.*
*Last year the govt. Closed the BIK loophole. However they remain at the commercil flat rate of VED rather than being changed based on emissions like normal cars, making them much cheaper than they would otherwise be. They also may be exempt from the luxury vehicle tax.*
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/-widespread-misunderstanding-around-pick-up-truck-taxation-changes
> US style
> Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux
Yeah, uh, these small trucks are used as wheel chocks by full sized US trucks like the Ford 150, Dodge Ram etc. It’s always the people who have never stepped outside who get their opinions broadcast, isn’t it?
Edit: Let’s get some figures:
Ford F-150
• Width: ~2030 mm (79.9 in) 
• Length: 5884 – 6184 mm (~232 in max)
• Sold in 2025: ~620,850 in the US, 0 in UK (US’s best selling truck)
Ford Ranger
• Width: ~1918 – 2032 mm (75.5 – 80.1 in) 
• Length: ~5370 – 5470 mm (211.4 – 215.4 in)
• Sold in 2025: ~56,019 in the US, 17,462 in UK (UK’s best selling truck)
Audi A6 for comparison
• Width: ~1886 mm (74.3 in) 
• Length: ~4939 mm (194.4 in)
So we can see what a “US-style” truck actually is, and how the tiny weeny trucks is Brits get upset about compare to something we don’t look twice at
These are better than Tesla’s that fund Elon Musk fascist platform, X.
This article is nonsense. It’s saying that the doubling of US style pickups has doubled and that they now roam our city streets… in reality it’s counting all pickups, and shows no evidence that they’re more present in cities.
What they aren’t saying is that in the last 10 years there’s been an influx of high capability, low cost pick ups like Dacia and D-Max (neither American in manufacturing or style) that make for great utility vehicles, and probably replaced utility SUVs or micro vans. Also completely ignores the fact that SUVs have rebranded in the last 10 years and now cost considerably more.
It’s actually outrageous that someone has been paid real money to write an article about there being 300k more pick ups on the road and has provided zero analysis.
Small penis coping syndrome has spread from the US.
What makes a pickup an American style? Feckless writing, that is
Everyone I know who owns a pickup and isn’t a farmer is an arsehole, and clearly compensating for their small manhood.
Mental that they are allowed. They dont meet our safety requirements and so shouldn’t be allowed on our roads.
One thing I doubt they have factored into this, is the decline of the land rover being used as a vehicle in rural areas. A lot of farmers no longer use the defender as their main vehicle, as they are simply priced out of it. The new defender starts at around £60k, a new Ford ranger starts at around £30k. Many people living rurally, are going for that cheaper option.
It won’t be the whole story, but it will be a decent part of it.
I don’t see them as any more of a problem than the huge amounts of suvs on the road nowadays.
It’s slightly crazy to we aren’t taxing SUVs more given the push to be more environmentally friendly.
Letting more people buy large vehicles than they need seems counterproductive.
Sensationalist headline really(shocker for the guardian) . 300,000 over 12 years isn’t that big of a jump. The ford ranger is still the most common and we’ve had that since 1998.
Easy fix to ban street parking for vehicles over a certain size. Give exception to work vans during 9-5 monday to friday.
Time to bring in additional parking charges for these twat mobiles. Ruddy annoying watching them eat up parking spaces and be a general liability.
Weve got a LHD behemoth in our town, looks like some sort of import. Its a stupid idea since most of our rural roads are narrow
We should start a luddite-esk movement to rid the country of them.
Its those Ford Raptors. Ridiculous size for a vehicle. City’s are least concern. I live in a small town and see loads of them, roads where 2 cars can fit now have to stop to let these arseholes through.
One blocked the entire road outside my sons school because it tried to turn down a side street and there was a car parked near the junction. Even an SUV could have made the turn but this massive thing couldnt and left the back end in the road. Took them 10 minutes to move during drop off time.
Inside they arent even that spacious, its height and the trailer bed, two things that dont really make any difference
To be fair, the smaller pickup trucks you see in the UK are taxed very heavily in the USA so you hardly see any in the US.
True US style pickup trucks are still quite rare in the UK because they are too big and use too much fuel…
With the person quoted at the end. I wonder if they have a crossover which are just as bad.
You know, almost everyone in the UK is a landscaper so they need them everywhere 🤡
300,000 extra trucks, it’s a none story.
Electric vehicles weigh 2000kg
The dramatic 98% growth is a telegraph/mail clickbait headline
If they werent unreliable as fuck Id love a Ford Raptor.
The pickups quoted in the article aren’t even ‘American’. The Ranger, L200 and Hilux are all smaller pickups that have been sold here for decades. Most are smaller than a Transit. It’s not like there’s been a sudden influx of F150s and RAM15000s.
They’re tiny cock wagons. Driven by those in desperate need of feeling bigger everyone else.
I’d absolutely love a full size US pickup. I have a few hobbies it’d be perfectly suited for but I get by with my current car just fine.
The reason I’d want one though, is have you seen the size of the inside of those things?
I went to the US and hired one to drive Route 66, at the time in the UK I had a very large car by our standards but those pickups are huge. I genuinely couldn’t touch my partners shoulder from the drivers seat, the centre console had so much room for drinks, phone charging and what not.
I regularly visit a friend in Scotland and driving from the South Coast with a car and 4 people everyone would have so much more room – as well as the bed full of all the camping and other stuff.
Yes it’d be a nightmare on most roads day to day and it’d never get parked but the idea of having more room in the car really appeals to me.
They’re not really US style but…. I very much so like haveing a truck
not being funny but the use my stepdad in Canada gets out of his old F150 i wish i had one, that being said their infrastructure is set up for them, massive wide roads, massive wide car parks, everything has a car park, we in with our tiny 1950’s road networks are not, also the massive SUV’s that seem to plague school drop offs are not much better judging by their drivers ability (or lack of it) to park.