Cybertruck Concerns Metal upon European Road Safety Authorities

The European Outcry Over Tesla's Cybertruck

Cybertruck Concerns Spark Fear Among European Road Safety Organizations

The aggressive arrival of Tesla's Cybertruck in Europe has set alarm bells ringing among European road safety organizations.

A coalition of over half a dozen NGOs, including the European Road Safety Council and the International Federation of Pedestrians, recently penned a strong-worded open declaration expressing their concerns about the potential hazards posed by Elon Musk's metallic beast. This reaction follows the Czech Republic's bold decision to license one of Tesla's trucks as a passenger vehicle, thereby granting it passage into the continent. The safety advocates suspect that the owner of this particular vehicle might have deceptively underdeclared its weight to facilitate its certification as an import.

Now, road safety enthusiasts seem to anticipate deep-seated problems for European commuters, and they're not backing down. Their pressure eventually led to the issuance of the open declaration, which asserts, "We assess that the approval and registration of Cybertrucks in the EU poses illegal risks to all other road users." In the same breath, they suggest that the handful of Cybertrucks registered in the EU should be immediately deregistered and removed from European roads.

What started this uproar? Quite simply, the Cybertruck appears to be utterly unsafe. "The Cybertruck disregards a host of fundamental European road safety norms applicable to passenger cars (M1)," the declaration elaborates. "From its absent or insufficient crumple zones for impact absorption to its harsh edges, the truck falls short on multiple safety fronts."

One of the critical issues surrounding the Cybertruck is its sharp, angular edges, which seem tailor-made for slicing through cyclists. According to Wired, the same individual who imported the Tesla truck to the Czech Republic attempted to circumvent local regulations regarding angular car design by fitting slim rubber bumpers to the vehicle's four corners. This modification, they fear, could pave the way for the "mass influx of Cybertrucks into Europe." They also caution that the Czech Republic could potentially serve as a covert gateway to smuggle such hazardous vehicles into other EU Member States.

Tesla remained unresponsive to requests for comment from Gizmodo before the publication of this article.

Historically, Europe has led the way in safeguarding its consumers through sensible regulations. Regrettably, even by American standards, the Cybertruck's safety credentials may be questionable. "The Cybertruck is bereft of crash absorption features or has them in inadequate quantities, posing unacceptably high risks to all other road users," the declaration underlines. Due to the self-certification system in operation in the US, the Cybertruck has never been subjected to a public crash test. There are growing doubts as to whether the Cybertruck even complies with the below-par pedestrian safety standards prevalent in the US.

Despite the safety concerns, there have been only a handful of incidents involving the Cybertruck, among which one is particularly noteworthy. A man lost his life in a devastating collision in the Houston area in August when his vehicle plunged into a culvert and burst into flames. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an examination into the incident earlier this summer.

The safety advocates argue that the approval and registration of Cybertrucks in the EU poses illegal risks not only to the other road users but also to pedestrians, due to the truck's sharp, angular edges that disregard European road safety norms.
According to the open declaration, the Cybertruck may be missing or having inadequate crash absorption features, making it questionable even by American standards, and there are growing doubts whether it complies with the pedestrian safety standards prevalent in the US.
Concerned Europeans fear that the sharp edges of the Cybertruck, if left unregulated, could potentially lead to an influx of such vehicles into Europe, posing a significant risk to cyclists.
The European outcry over the Tesla Cybertruck is rooted in its perceived lack of safety features, as the truck has never been subjected to a public crash test due to the self-certification system in operation in the US.