United States | News & Politics

I love how they throw in a peterbuilt and an M1 Abraham for reference lol

I think in the truck culture the damage is already done. At this point we need to deal with the demand to have those kinds of trucks.

I have a weird truck, it's a ten year old F150 with a single cab and an 8 foot bed. It's the only one I see that isn't obviously a company truck, and it used to be a hardware store rental truck. It carries building materials, motorcycles, junk to the dump, all with the tailgate safely closed. I don't like the little 5 foot beds on the crew cab trucks, it's like you have this giant truck and all you can carry are small things. It's as useful as a Ford Taurus.

It's hilarious if you ever off-road.

They're really shit off tarmac driving anything through anything more advanced than a field. Too long wheel base, far too wide, shit turning cycle, too long nose, not enough weight on the rear wheels when not fully loaded.

You can run rings around them on an off-road track in a Suzuki Jimny or even a 50 year old Lada.

But obviously don't tell the truck people that. These are cars that are sold on the idea of being able to drive off into the wilderness at a moment's notice. Pointing out that's a lie, that they just spent too much money that if anything offers them less freedom than a conventional car, often results in an emotional reaction.

I own an '01 3/4 ton suburban for boat and camper hauling. It's small compared to a stock 1/2 ton today. The top of their beds is almost at my roofline. All that size increase comes with very little gain besides dick measuring it seems. I will never understand why people buy them, especially for 60k+.

I have a minivan currently and they're so practical for the average American. Hauling stuff? Put the seats down, and your "bed" is longer than almost any pickup's, plus it's protected from the elements. Hauling people? Seats go up, and it will fit seven people. Even though you sit high up the grill is angled downward, meaning better visibility AND in a crash will throw the victim over the car rather than under (way better likelihood for survival). They also tend to get decent mileage compared to trucks. Hell they even make for a great camping vehicle: no tent needed, just throw a sleeping pad in the back with the seats down and call it a night. It's such a shame that they were branded as soccer mom vehicles, because a lot of folks buying trucks for their "practicality" would be better served with a minivan.

However! They are not good for: carrying loose gravel/soil/mulch/manure, transporting livestock, traveling on 4WD roads and other rough terrain, hauling a trailer, or moving stuff that's tall but cannot be tipped on its side. The carrying/hauling capacity is really low, the ground clearance minimal, and the carpet-like interior gets dirty really easily. These are not tasks that the average customer is going to undertake often, and I've creatively worked around many of these limitations in the past for one-off instances, but it's definitely not an everyday-use farm vehicle.

Plenty of agricultural stuff you don't want to share a roof with. And you want a hard bed that you can hose off.

I disagree on all accounts. Instead of banning/restricting trucks, we should instead make them less convenient and more expensive. So:

• restructure cities to be transit and pedestrian first, not traffic first - see The Netherlands
• charge vehicle registration fees based on curb weight, since heavier vehicles destroy roads more; multiply this by miles driven, less any documentation the owner has about driving on private land
• charge an extra fee for vehicles falling net mpg targets; don't special case SUVs and trucks, just tax them (and have certain exceptions to the tax, like if you actually use the higher passenger capacity of minivans, have a farm, etc)

The taxes would go toward pedestrian and transit infrastructure to offset the lower efficiency and greater danger larger vehicles pose.

If you can't put a flatbed or utility bed on it, it shouldn't be called a utility vehicle. They're just SUVs with the back opened up.