Wait...so you people don't use trucks?

One of the biggest shocks I’ve had since coming to Europe was the automobiles. Coming from an oil-boom town in North Dakota, I’ve seen some big vehicles, and most of them are oilfield trucks with suspension lifts, making the trucks stand something like seven feet tall at the tops of the cabs. The size difference between European and American cars is a little jarring at first, but even the types of cars that Europeans drive are far, far different than American vehicles.

From the time I could drive, I’ve driven all kinds of cars in America, from little four-cylinder cars to 15-passenger vans. After getting my learner’s permit, I drove a 1990s minivan with my mom and blasted a 1970s chart-toppers cassette-tape; upon getting my normal driver’s license, I graduated from the minivan to a 1977 Ford F-150 with a 400 V8 engine and dual exhaust with glass-packs (because I wanted a loud, cool truck). I named him Frankenstein, since we replaced a lot of his parts with parts from other trucks we had at our house; alas, Frankenstein’s undying hatred of mailboxes destroyed him (with help from an icy road), and I moved on to Old Blue, a 1978 Ford F-150. I drove Old Blue through my stay at community college, then bought a truck for myself, a small 2001 Ford Ranger that I named the “Power Ranger.”

As far as vehicles in Britain go, the cars are far smaller than American ones. I was watching the Discovery Channel a few weeks back during my lunch break, and there’s always a car show on. There are two guys: one guy buys a junker car, then gives it to the second guy, who’s a mechanic. The mechanic fixes up the car and gives it back to the first guy, who then sells the car again. They had a pretty generic car from the UK on the program in this particular episode, and they each kept saying how massive, how huge, how monstrous this car was—and my Power Ranger pickup, which is a small pickup truck by American standards, was only a few inches longer and wider than this car.

When my sister came to Europe about the time she graduated from high school, I was still only a freshman or sophomore in high school—hence, just another dumb kid. I seriously thought that she was joking when it came to how small the cars were here. She also drove a 1970s Ford truck for a while, and she said that most European cars would fit into the back of her truck—and she really wasn’t lying. Most of these cars really are teeny.

For the months that I’ve been in Norway and across Europe, I’ve seen just two big vehicles. One of them looks like an import for the United States—a suspension-lifted Ford F-250—and when it goes down the street in front of my house, the other cars on the road have to pull over to make room for it to go past. The other one I’ve seen is a big, black Hummer H2. I didn’t really figure on seeing any Hummers in Norway, considering Norway seems like a very ecologically-aware country that imposes taxes on people’s cars based on those cars’ emissions.

Pickup trucks in Norway (and Europe, for that matter) seem pretty scarce. Whereas most construction workers in the United States drive pickup trucks to their job sites, or most oilfield workers drive 4x4 pickups to their rig locations, construction workers in Norway drive vans—and seemingly, these vans are no bigger than the minivan with which I started driving. Instead of having an open-box pickup truck like Americans, the carpenters that have been working on my street for months turn these little minivans into mobile workstations, converting the back half of the minivan into a place to store lumber, supplies, power tools, hand tools—you name it. I've asked people around ACN where all the pickup trucks are, and they usually say that there aren't that many in Norway. It almost seems like the word "truck" is only given to semi-trucks with huge cargo trailers or dump trucks, or other large construction vehicles.

When it comes to vehicle brands, there’s a little bit of a difference there, too. Back in the United States, if you drive a Mercedes Benz, most people will think that you’re well-off, since the Mercedes Benz brand gives off a posh vibe to Americans. I walked out of my apartment one of my first days here and saw the garbage truck rumbling up the street—with a huge Mercedez Benz logo on the front of it.

Coming from a family that, at one point, drove three 1970s Ford trucks and one 2001 Ford truck, it’s been a really interesting experience in Norway and Europe so far, seeing how different cultures utilize vehicles for both work and play. Coming from an area of North Dakota where pickup trucks outnumber cars by a significant amount also makes for a significant change. And now, I just want to drive my little truck again.