I drive a small pickup truck. I love it. Quiet, decent on gas, stores much, easy to park, great to move furniture or gardening stuff or random whatever. It is true most of the time it is not towing anything or carrying huge loads, but it usually does so several times a month. Often enough to be convenient, but the truth is I just enjoy driving it.
As puzzlegal says though, it’s not just money, it’s about reducing hassle.
There are all sorts of appliances in my home that don’t get used very often, and I could hypothetically borrow or hire them, but I prefer the freedom and simplicity of just getting the job done whenever I want.
Which is true of a lot of significant purchases.
I dunno, I just didn’t like the article as it seemed to be sneering at other people’s choice.
I haven’t heard anyone make fun of me for having a 5-seater car, but trucks, I guess because of the cultural baggage, are fair game.
I think we’re missing a LOT of the point of the popularity of trucks.
If you live in a place where pickup trucks are popular and you drive a car, you’ll be surrounded by vehicles whos bumper is at your face level. They can see over you, you can’t see around them.
This is simply an arms race. People want to be able to see over other traffic. And to have a sense that their vehicile will do as well in a collision as the vehicle next to or behind them. When all those vehicles are trucks, yours needs to be too.
The fact that trucks are exempt from some regulations that apply to cars only ups the attractiveness for the libertarian wannabe crowd.
I think it’s safe to say that a large fraction of the personal auto market caters to people who aren’t buying the cheapest possible transportation solution for their needs.
For sure. There are folks who by choice or necessity get by with the least possible vehicle. But the by-choice folks are a small minority. And outside the SES where people are really struggling the “necessity” argument doesn’t get much traction either.
I drive a rather snazzy car; the waste of dollars & fuel it represents is irresponsible. But it’s fun and a nice self-gift. It needs no more justification than that.
I think most of the sneering done -in this thread- (careful emphasis) is about the aspirational reasons people claim to want trucks. Your response is utterly fair and honest - you like what you like, and you want to drive it. And that’s fine! But many people say they want or need it for the carrying / towing / off-road capacity but never (or almost never) use any of those features. The snark and sneering are for the dishonesty in motives, rather than the abilities of the vehicles themselves.
Or at least that’s how I read it.
I don’t know what anyone else has in mind, but I’m talking about F-150 crew cab class trucks. Of which the Cybertruck is an example. About 20 feet long and huge in all dimensions.
I just got back from grabbing dinner and decided to count the trucks. The CA Bay Area isn’t really truck country, but there are more than a few. I counted about 15 in the short drive home. With a single exception, all were F-150 size and 4 doors.
The most ridiculous part is that all (aside from the one exception, which might have been a commercial truck), they all had about a 4-inch lift. And the bed walls are so high to start with these days that it would be impossible to load anything significant without lowering the gate. But of course, the beds are largely not used to haul anything.
While I agree that it’s worth something to avoid hassle, a large truck like this costs thousands more per year in gas and vehicle expenses. Is it worth $500 per instance to avoid having to rent a truck or make multiple trips in a car? Not in my book. It’s more than delivery costs, also.
Plus, that has to be countered with the daily hassle of driving a truck. I borrowed my dad’s F-150 a while back for a few weeks. Stupidest thing I ever had to drive. Absolutely everything was mildly to moderately more annoying in that truck compared to a modest car/SUV. And that was a “smaller” model from the 90s!
Mostly, yeah. But LSLGuy does raise a salient point. A small sportscar may be a waste in the sense of being more expensive than practicality warrants. But they don’t inherently harm anyone else on the road. A truck though imposes a cost on everyone. They’re more dangerous in collisions, are hard to see around, take up more space, and so on. These costs are mostly not paid by the driver. As he said, though, it’s an arms race, which is just another way of saying that it’s a tragedy-of-the-commons situation.
Maybe it’s because trucks annoy other drivers that other drivers like to put down truck drivers.
Agree with the last few posts.
I’ll mentioned regulation in my last post. The most significant reg that F-150 class trucks are exempt from is the CAFE regs: IOW fuel economy.
2020 cars are vastly smaller than 1950s cars because, and IMO only because, gas mileage is regulated. Smaller, lighter, more aerodynamic cars get better fuel mileage.
Meanwhile, Americans are larger than ever.
Trucks are remarkably spacious inside. Someone who’s driven late model sedans for years will be amazed. If you’re north of ~200lbs as a woman, or ~225 as a man, which is about 1/3 of the adult population, squeezing into a 2020s sedan is misery, while flopping your bulk into a pickup is wonderful. As long as the climb up isn’t too hard.
I believe that IF the fuel economy regs disappeared tomorrow, within 5 years we’d see all the US manufacturers coming up with sedans essentially made from the cab portion of F-150 class pickups. Same uber-roomy design, just a lower ride height and a permanently enclosed trunk.
I’ve lost a little weight, but i was 190 for years, and i find airplane seats challenging, and i have to disagree totally with this claim. Yes, there are some cars with tight space, especially in the back. But front seats? With the seat pulled back? I’ve never been in a car i didn’t fit into. And larger sedans have FAR more space than i want or need.
(I’m only 5’6". I think height matters more than weight for this. And there are some sedans I’m comfy in that are tighter for larger friends. But large sedans have a LOT of passenger room up front. And this is something I’ve discussed in the context of buying cars with large male friends.)
Also, i haven’t driven an f150 class pickup. But I’ve driven several rental trucks. I don’t find those cabs especially comfortable or roomy. Some have been downright awkward. I’m curious now about the space in a pick-up.
That may explain why the Pepsi plant near us just built a large charging station.
No argument from me that the truck loophole is stupid and trucks should have to follow the same economy and crash rules as other vehicles targeted at non-commercial use.
I was just explaining why the argument that most truck owners infrequently using particular features makes their ownership irrational isn’t a good one.
I think when the rule was made most pickups were used commercially. And the line has to be drawn somewhere. And that CAFE line had a lot to do with people buying trucks for non-commercial use.
The curious loophole is 13 passenger vans. (I think that’s the size.) Those are exempt from a lot of the safety rules that apply to passenger cars, and they are small enough and light enough to do poorly in crashes. There was a time when my employer (a large insurance company with a lot of bad experience with them) explicitly forbade employees from riding in those vans on company business.
Right, but other countries seem to be able to draw this line better. I think many US trucks would need a heavy goods license in much of the world.
And even where that’s not the case, it’s usually obvious from the way a vehicle is being marketed and what kind of dealership it’s available at, whether it is primarily meant for commercial use.
One of my first thoughts was “Man, cleaning the inside of the front windshield is gonna be a bitch”
No plans on getting an electric vehicle soon. We buy what we want and works for us, and drive um into the ground.
And in any case, we would need to set up a charging station at home. No garage, and 30 feet of snow a year makes it problematic.
The irony of course is that the rationale for the exemptions was that cars would far outnumber trucks, with the latter presumed to be limited to commercial and utilitarian purposes. This is an anachronism in our crazy world where the Ford F-150 is by a big margin the top-selling vehicle in America. Which is why many of us have a special loathing for big pickups, given the environmental and safety costs they impose on all of us.
+1
I have a tiny honda fit/jazz - and its super spacious on the inside … we often used it over my wife’s volvo stationwagon, b/c the seating space was more generous
and if you want to get even more extreme: the 3.83m long Honda Fit/Jazz offers way more space than the 5.47m landyacht of a Cry-sler Cordoba that I once owned …
photos seem to confirm this memory… its huge everywhere people do not sit when its moving 
… and it also accelerates way faster 0-100km/h than the crysler, let alone handling in curves, while possibly burning 1/3 of fuel to do so. And I wouldn’t even call the Honda a great car … just a middle of the road grocery getter
… and why is that so? … b/c of all the reasons LSL mentioned that happened (between 1950 and 2020) … so let’s not pretend that was a bad thing
private ownership vs. owned and operated by a company w/in the company’s line of business (w/ IRS breathing down your neck to validate) comes to mind … seems to work just fine for many other countries
environmental cost inside and outside of america …
I test drove a Honda Fit, and the salesman said it was called “fit” because it fits everyone. He said it can be adjusted to be comfy for both the very tall and the very short.
I ended up getting a different car, but it’s a nicely designed vehicle.
(I’m close to average size. I suspect every car sold in the US fits me.)
I totally share in this annoyance over big pickups. Loathing may be a bit much, but yes, they are vexing and I find myself criticizing the attitude of their owners far more often than their mere driving warrants.
At the same time I admit that my own vehicular choices are bad too, just in different ways. So I think of it as my dark gray pot calling those kettles black. Hard for me to get too vehement while retaining the intellectual honesty I pride myself in. Whether that pride is fully warranted is for others to decide. But holding that as a virtue, even in the breach, makes me feel good about me.