this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
1252 points (95.6% liked)
Fuck Cars
9682 readers
1654 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If you're worried about making the cab bigger and comfier, you don't need a truck.
There are no arguments to this and no one has a point against me here. If cab space is the concern, you need a minivan or SUV.
Blanket statement with impunity incoming. Combining these vehicles is a bad idea. For safety and efficiency. If you think this is a good idea in any possible way, you're simply incorrect.
You're just buying an SUV with a truck bed attached because your little balls say you want a "manly" vehicle.
You wouldn't put a hitch on a moped. Don't put a bed on a SUV.
Extending the length of a vehicle past the point where a hitch makes it longer than a parking space should be a "first offense your company is due down immediately" kind of offense first of all. The amount of these hitches blocking sidewalks and handicap accessibility spaces is absolutely bonkers.
Why don't we have a president type of office that doesn't mess with politics or international affairs, they just have nationwide power for common sense stuff like banning pickups simply being used as passenger vehicles, curbing attempts to overgrow parking spaces, and probably a bunch of other stuff too.
Also, I have a great idea for a whole new tax. :)
Let's make an industry out of dining these people to the point where only businesses use trucks. Regular people can rent them easily enough to move between apartments or what have you, but these should never have been general use daily drivers.
Let's just crush and compact the entire pickup truck industry to an incredibly tiny fraction of what it is now.
My dude, I put a hitch on a scooter. My little trailer kicks ass. Well, it did before it was stolen, but that's besides the point.
Sorry that your ass-kicking little trailer was stolen. 😟
It might still, just not for you
Trailers are great! You can tow with minivans, cars, suvs and trucks. Trailers typically are easier to load, have more capacity and can be a lot longer than a truck bed.
Contractors get most of their building supplies delivered by flat bed trucks anyways.
You are definitely wrong, there is a market for it. It’s clearly not as big as it currently is, but there are absolutely people that families and work some sort of construction or farming job where a truck is necessary, and carrying more than 3 people comfortably is also necessary. And two vehicles is also not feasible.
What do you think construction workers in the rest of the world do?
Lorries with heavy capacity. Trucks of a different design but similar capacities.
That little truck in the picture is literally a construction work truck. They use those.
They have vehicles to carry more than 800 lbs.
That market is astronomically smaller than the amount of these large pickups with huge cabs being sold.
Yes, that’s what I said. Doesn’t change the fact that the market does in fact exist, unlike the comment I replied to was claiming.
I mean, fuck, I own a bar and need a pickup truck simply because how else am I gonna return 250 empty cases of beer to recycling? I ain't putting that smell in an enclosed van and if I got an open trailer, I'd need a truck to tow it anyways. (I actually do have a van, I use it in winter and rainy days for picking up full beer cases, doesn't have near the weight capacity of the truck although using the same motor and getting similar mileage)
Okay…so you need a truck to haul beer cans. What’s wrong with the simple low-profile one for that job?
The criticism is on freak hybrid SUV-trucks.
Do you know how much 250 empty cases of 24 bottles weighs? Its a lot more than the little one can hold. I had to construct 2x4 stake panels up to the height of the roof as it was with a full size long bed, in order to avoid making 3 trips (twenty miles to the depot), and it would take five with that little truck that can't even hit highway speed. It also can't tow my fifth wheel camper. (From 1983, before I get the rich person problems accusation. I ain't rich, I'm rural and handy enough buy old shit cheap)
So without the pickup truck, you'd still be able to do it with an alternative.
No. Read it again.
Nope sorry, you actually don’t exist. OP says it’s impossible for someone to need a truck.
Common misconception, but you do not, and a folding trailer hooked up to a car with a tow rating capable of pulling it takes up much less overall space when it's folded up than the truck will most of the time. You'll also probably get better gas mileage, which is a bonus, plus better pedestrian safety, less force going into a car crash which collectively makes everyone on the road safer, and makes it safer to crash into stationary objects, decreased roadwear, things of this nature. This sort of trailer setup is done all the time in europe, as another comment concurs.
I'm not putting 3000 lbs of beer bottles on a trailer behind a (modern) car. It's borderline unsafe and over car capacity. You're talking to a CDL holder, I do know s thing or two about pulling trailers. Cars domt have full frames anymore, that's only one of the many reasons this bad idea
3000 lbs is well within the towing capacity of a VW Golf with a braked trailer. Not to mention a van.
LOL. I just looked up tongue weight max on a golf. 300 pounds. They're literally useless and dangerous for towing anything over 1000lbs.
All those Europeans towing with their small cars must just be my imagination then.
Seems like it. Or maybe you've no sense of scale, don't know what you're looking at. Max tongue weight like that, a person would nearly have to balance 3000 lbs on the trailer axle, 1800 front, 1200 rear or so. Recipe for a whipping trailer.
Said three thousand pound load, that does not include the trailer. Gross weights gonna be 4500, 5000 ish. Vans are generally pickup truck drivelines this continent, so no real difference there for mileage.
No difference in mileage, maybe. Certainly a huge difference in danger to pedestrians and cyclists.
Why not just admit hating certain people makes you feel smart?
In addition, suvs are also unnecessary and unneeded.
You want a cross country vehicle? Get a jeep or a Suzuki samurai or a Unimog. You want to flaunt your wealth and show everyone how big you are on the road? Buy a tram company and lobby your city to install it. If you can't do that, you're not wealthy enough and have no right to flex.
I agree about SUVs actually, but that's a different argument. That one is more opinionated, whereas I can't even fathom this ones being arguable.
Good old jeeps. Same mileage as a pickup truck with no load capacity.
When I had to buy a truck I didn't really care that the A/C and radio didn't work. I didn't care that the interior was stained and uncomfortable. I didn't care that the ride was rough and noisy. I didn't even care that much that it got bad gas mileage, as I wouldn't be driving it much.
I needed a truck for truck stuff. I'm not gonna buy a truck with a leather interior when I'm normally covered in dirt when I'm using it. I don't need it to look big and manly because I just need it to haul garbage and tow livestock trailers. And I definitely don't want to pay $70,000 for something I'm going to use it offroad.
Stating in your argument "there are no arguments to this" highlights up front how close-minded you are to discussion on the subject. It's perfectly acceptable to discuss things you strongly believe in while still allowing yourself to be open-minded about opposing views. In fact, I would say it is required for honest discourse to occur.
In my personal experience, I have one of these vehicles with a comfortable and spacious cab. It allows me to have one vehicle for all the tasks that come with a sheep and pig farm, and also allows us to transport our large family comfortably to and fro. I would like my family to be comfortable while riding in our vehicle, which is equally able to perform various work functions related to farming and transport a family. Why would we purchase and maintain two separate vehicles for these purposes when a single option exists?
Corn, wheat, and other farmers have separate vehicles to accomplish the tasks necessary for their farms, e.g. a combine harvester, seeder, iriggator, etc. I know they also have large spacious trucks as well, but my point is that it is feasible to expect an agricultural business owner, or any buisness owner, to have different commercial equipment for different tasks related to their industry. Besides, whereas all the people who need pickups for their business have them, not all pickup owners need their vehicles for business. I see many, many large pickups parked in residential areas of the city and around the suburbs. The closest most of those people get to agribusiness is going to the grocery store. That's the second point, if you don't absolutely need a large truck for business, you shouldn't use one for your everyday driver. Imagine if big rigs were affordable for most everyone and people used them for daily driving.
While I agree that farmers can have specialized vehicles for different tasks, not all do. We farm sheep, pigs, chickens, and ducks and do not have specialized equipment. We don't even have a tractor. I also don't disagree that people who don't have a use for trucks don't need them, but I wouldn't go to far as to say they shouldn't have them. While objectively worse for the environment than a vehicle more suitable to their lifestyles, it's a slippery slope (as we've seen) once we start legislating morality.
Bottom line: if we didn't operate a farm business, we wouldn't have a need for or the desire to have a large truck. More likely, any truck at all. We certainly wouldn't have one to park in the driveway of the suburban house we would probably live in. It's just impractical, but not everyone is gifted with innate pragmatism.
Laws are legislating morality. What else would they be?
commonly held misconception, laws in fact just spontaneously come into existence and we have no choice but to follow and enforce them (except for rich people, who are inherently better people and thus are able to disobey the law without consequence)
While I absolutely despise the rise of dumbass suburban cowboys, making it to require a business to own one is kind of stupid. I mean growing up in farm land, you do often need a truck to do things like grab manure or lime, picking up feed, or the occasional carcass.
You could tax based on vehicle weight and vehicle type instead of a stupid, outdated gas tax and that could actually put a curb on this type of dumbass penis extender behavior. Maybe lesson it depending on where you're registering it, farmland zoned and registered under gets less tax but I honestly think that unless you fix the stupid bro country, wanna be cowboy culture that leads to this suburban cowboy dumbfuckery, you're honestly not going to make much of a dent even with taxes.
We had a quad cab Nissan Navarra (Frontier) working forestry. Four guys in the cab. Saws, petrol, oil, gear, tools, wire and fence posts in the bed. Fantastic vehicle, got everywhere. Could haul serious weight when needed. It was a tool that became a battered jalopy. We’d leave it in the yard every night. I’d take the train home, my mate cycled and the other two guys somehow squeezed into a Smart car as they shared a lift. We were all insured to drive it on public roads 24/7 but none of us saw the point. Great vehicle in its arena but a hindrance and inconvenience outside of it.
While I would be in favor of making vehicle sizes regulated we already have that but thanks to the requirement of dealerships and the lobbying from the big 3 tmcars here in America have minimum sizes rather than maximum sizes so if anything I believe it to be more ideal to break regulations so cheap affordable cars can finally be legal to build, sell and import
It's a hatch back with a strapon.
For manly men.
This is stupid. Why should a blue collar worker with a family have to buy and drive two different vehicles just because of your personal preferences. Building two vehicles is no doubt worse for the planet than making one slightly less efficient vehicle. This is especially true if we are talking about EVs which are the future of trucks this size.
TIL blue collar workers only exist in the US South.
I never said they did? I don't live in the US
They are pointing out that you have alternatives, just like the rest of the worlds blue collar workers. Americans seem to weigh their personal comfort higher than nearly anything.
Are cars like this not sold in Europe? Their popularity in USA has much more to do with USA vehicle regulations than anything else.
The regulations are in place to maximize profit, so they make huge expensive luxury trucks.
In my experience, a large group of truck owners buy them purely for luxury. They are absurdly expensive vehicles, its impossible to justify buying them unless they fill all roles so they are now the family vehicle, grocery getter, daily driver, vacation vehicle, etc.
The two cars we own combined, brand new, totaled up to 40k, but we bought them used for a total of 20k. Thats easily 30k+ I could spend on a whole other vehicle, a trailer, modifications to my existing vehicles, or whatever else would make sense for a number of use cases.
Ego and status drive a lot of luxury truck sales, mainly because I dont know many blue collar workers that want to spend extra on an interior thats going to get destroyed from regular use anyhow. And the tiny beds dont help.
Surely you can buy these used?
You can but they dont lose value nearly the same way. You can look it up yourself but from my experience a used truck will maintain a value closer to its sale price than a passenger sedan will almost Everytime.
For some reason jeeps also are the same in my region, but that could be a local thing for sure.
I'd be looking still at 40-50k minimum for a truck that was made within the past 10 years.