I understand, but a modern pickup truck comfortably seats 6 in its King Cab (and good luck finding a truck without a King Cab) and has a bed that is useless for carrying anything except maybe your gym bag or a dozen cases of empties. There is no doubt the purpose of a modern pickup truck is as a passenger vehicle and secondarily to provide an advertising medium for you political beliefs.
The fact that modern American passenger vehicles have evolved into statistically significant deathtraps for surrounding pedestrians, cyclist, and even smaller cars is as political as anything else in that country these days.
What's missing is that those "worksite" trucks should require a special commercial drivers license and extra testing for the professional drivers who drive them, same as big rigs. And not be allowed for non-work trips like driving to school.
This is a really good idea that I have not heard before.
It can also be introduced with new vehicle registrations so as not to bring out the pitchforks. Anyone with a truck can keep going, but next purchase, they need to do a driving test.
I can't imagine parents paying for their kids to do the extra course if it costs them a fraction of that for their kid to drive a regular sedan.
You need to do a pilot study to see if accidents can be reduced. This could be done in a Western town that has tens of miles from it to anywhere else, so you are only putting a few thousand people through the course.
This could be financially incentivised, so people get paid to do the course. If the results are good then you could make it so that people buying a truck or wanting to drive one get $500 off if they have done the course, with insurers in on it so that it just becomes easier to do the course. No freedom to be American need be jeopardised.
I think what you are asking is to lower the existing legal thresholds. Today if a vehicle's GVWR/GCWR or axle count exceeds a specific number varies by state then a different endorsement is required on the drivers license. [1] Each state may have additional requirements and some have additional endorsements and classes of vehicle.
Your comment is dripping with more political vitriol than I've seen in "that country" in a while
You can find plenty of more compact pickups - I've been searching for the best one for a while because the Dodge Ram and Ford F150 are just too big.
The Honda Ridgeline, the Ford Maverick, the Chevrolet Colorado, the Hyundai Santa Cruz, the Toyota Tacoma, are all more compact, only seat 2-4 people, and have more bed than cab.
The problem is not supply, it's demand. Every american wants to be the biggest vehicle on the road, and can't stand the mild inconvenience of sitting in a car, so their vehicle must be as large, spacious, comfortable, and luxurious as an expensive couch.
Toyota could bring back the tiny 90s tundra, and they would sell a tiny tiny number of them. That's why the modern corolla is as large as the 2000s camry.
Indeed, it should be the actual use that governs this. If you use it as a passenger vehicle, it's a passenger vehicle. If you use it on a farm then it's a farm vehicle.
There's already special registration for farm vehicles in a lot of states. The taxes are lower and that's one of the few cases where you can use pink diesel, which is also taxed differently.
Trucks used as passenger vehicles are already more expensive to register and run than farm vehicles.
Exactly. The technocrats thought they'd be clever, and they basically outlawed reasonably sized cars for very small marginal efficiency gains. People bought light truck instead. People don't want to drive around in dinky death traps.
The CAFE standards for cars are too restrictive. The fleet averages look great, but the percentage of cars as vehicles on the road is low. Cars such as station wagons don't exist any more - the only option is to go larger and get an SUV.
The current crop of technocrats thinks that regulation is like violence. If you don't get the result you want, then add more regulation. Still don't get the result you want, add more regulation. They never think about offering compelling products that people want to buy at a decent price point.
I don't understand this comment. SUVs are classified as passenger vehicles. They're also getting larger (and more dangerous for pedestrians), but to nowhere near the same degree that pickup trucks have.
The danger posed by pickup trucks is chiefly a function of the absence of regulation: the US has decided that you can role-play as a farmer and get treated as one for safety purposes, without actually demonstrating a need for a car that's patently unsafe for US streets and highways.
It's complicated because the SUV label is arbitrarily used by manufacturers and consumers, but many/most SUVs are classified as light trucks for safety and emissions purposes.
My bad -- I thought that SUVs and "crossovers" were the same type of car, but the former is (apparently) typically the same platform as a light truck, while the latter is more typically a compact car or station wagon platform.
I'm not saying that we ought to restrict truck sales based on need -- I'd be perfectly happy restricting them to county roads only and requiring additional licensing and/or certification (similar to a CDL).
But since you asked: just about anything that can be turned into an explosive. Or, you know, prescription medicine.
> The technocrats thought they'd be clever, and they basically outlawed reasonably sized cars for very small marginal efficiency gains. People bought light truck instead. People don't want to drive around in dinky death traps
I thought this comment was saying the opposite of what you meant at first. There are no small cars anymore, even the "Mini" is gigantic. And modern cars are safer than ever, due to smarter design and better engineered materials.
None of your cited conspiracy really shakes out with reality. Station wagons are still being made but most Americans just don’t want them. There’s a stigma in the US against station wagons (Doug Demuro style enthusiasts notwithstanding,) similar to that against minivans, and this has resulted in less US wagons for decades. In some cases they’ve been rebranded as SUVs (eg Subaru Outback.)
There already were a few before, but now Dodge must have done something "right" because there really are many RAMs around. Those things are so ridiculous for Paris, that I'm pretty sure they don't even fit through some streets.
Hell, my father used to have a fairly common French sedan that would sometimes need a lot of maneuvering through the public garage ramps, and would barely fit in the parking slots.
In NL, a RAM can be bought as a company car, effectively dodging road tax. (50 euro vs 200 euro per month). For comparison, you pay 100 euro per month for a tiny car if it runs on diesel (these were 'green' and exempt from road tax 10 years ago). Or between 30 and 70 per month for gasoline cars.
We have the best or second best roads in the world (which is very noticeable when you drive into neighboring countries). Additionally we have extremely low congestion even at rush hour.
Road tax depends heavily on the vehicle. I think we pay ~€1000 a year, ~€83 a month, for our Hyundai ix35.
* Diesel is mostly front loaded in the yearly road tax. With a very low tax on fuel. So if you drive a lot it is worth getting a Diesel for this reason alone.
* Petrol has a lighter yearly tax. There is a formula someplace and it has to do with engine size, weight, age and some other things assuming I understood correctly. The yearly tax is cheaper on average than the diesel. Then there is a large tax on petrol. About €0.17 a liter or €0.642 a gallon.
Sometimes over 200.. And then we pay super high excise (lowered until the end of the year) and tax over fuel. Basically we pay about half on taxes over fuel. To finance that, you pay with money your earned and payed 50% income tax. So basically the gov takes 75ct out of your euro, and we still can't manage treasury
And this is a problem because why? It's pretty perfect for the role of "something a little lesser than a small dump truck but that still does the same jobs".
A "company car", usually means a van. Something with no passengers except the front row, and it needs to have certain dimensions. The RAM is therefore classified as one of those. And because vans are meant for business, you pay less.
They're showing up more in Czech Republic too. It's hard to describe quite how ridiculous they look here, they dwarf all cars around them and stick out like a sore thumb. I imagine actually using them is a pain given how scarce parking can be in the city, where I often see them.
Same thing happened to SUVs. It's mostly "i want a bigger car than my neighbour" kind of thing , and now there are many more SUVs, driving in a sedan around them feels a bit intimidating, as you are worried they may not see you well enough on the road. It's a downward spiral. Now people want something even bigger on the outside and they go with pickup trucks.
I think lots of people assume that the Toyota Hilux / Ford Ranger type pickups are as big as American pickups. In reality the pickups sold for the UK/EU are modest compared to the US. Even an F150 is quite a bit bigger, nevermind when you get into the F350 etc.
I was in Paris, Normandy, and all over the south of France for two weeks and didn’t see a single pickup. I swear every car there is like a variation of the Ford Fiesta.
While the vehicles sold under same brands and names, the outside configuration is different.
For example, you can't attach animal guards here to pickup trucks, and you need extra reflectors and different lighting configuration in US for all cars.
While not directly related to safety standards, intelligent active matrix LED lighting systems are illegal in US, too.
Everything the other people said, but also weird things with center of body mass and the strike area. You don't want people pushed under the car. You also don't want them to go head first through the windshield, which I'm told is why the Mini Cooper got such a drastic redesign a few years ago - they needed a taller hood not to flip pedestrians.
The tall grill at least doesn't ram your head through the glass. I don't know who started calling them FUVs (Fuck U Vehicles) but they are not wrong.
It’s more than just about style. As much as modern pickup trucks have become a fashion statement, many large pickup trucks are providing real utility to construction, farming, etc.
And much like 18 wheelers they can’t scale down the front while maintaining utility because they need large engines and high ground clearance.
Disagree. Because the utility is seldom fully utilized in an urban environment, they are nearly pure fashion. They serve as a signaling mechanism the same way that a pair of Gucci loafers do, just for a different culture.
>Because the utility is seldom fully utilized in an urban environment, they are nearly pure fashion.
Utilization of private vehicles scales with income, not with population density. HN just all tends to live in "nice" places so they never see people using their vehicles to the max. This is true for all vehicle classes, not just pickup trucks.
Because a strong negative reaction is also a sign of fashion.
Tattoos aren’t universal, what’s acceptable for Army special forces, goths, gang members, etc are all different. So, good or bad only exists in a specific context it isn’t something that any person can judge universally. Someone really can define good as whatever pisses people like you off.
Some of us need the utility of a truck (hauling a trailer for camping, hauling gear bi-weekly to a racetrack, driving through poorly maintained roads during the winter).
Well no... that's my point! A political statement is not fashion. If one plants a political flag in their garden in support of a presidential candidate, that's not fashion, that's politics.
If people decide to broadcast their opinions about the world using cars, they certainly can; but I don't think that kind of behavior can be called "fashion". Ideology, maybe.
Political affiliation is definitely part of social standing and the degree to which such signaling impacts how people talk, dress, and what they buy is very much fashion.
Regionality in fashion is significant, clothing included, but in this part of the world trucks are definitely fashion. People largely drive trucks because they like the way they look in them, not because they have some secret political statement that nobody is picking up on.
As you venture out into the world you will also find trucks that are clear political statements. You might be right that an individual cannot own a truck for both fashion and political reasons (although I'm not sure I agree), but just because some people use trucks for political statements does not mean all trucks are political statements. Some trucks can be used for fashion without crossing those who use them political statements.
I think that's making too fine of a point. There are numerous aesthetic choices associated with political positions; variants of "military chic" amongst conservatives is one example.
I happen to think that most modern trucks look incredibly stupid, but that's because their design language isn't intended for me. It's intended for people who have different fashion tastes, tastes that approximate political positions that I don't hold. In other words: the truck itself isn't a direct political statement, ordinarily; it's an efficient means for signaling politics through fashion.
> It's intended for people who have different fashion tastes, tastes that approximate political positions that I don't hold.
As a Canadian living in the heart of supply management (i.e. state ownership of the means of production) country, where supplies are provided by the so named and literal Co-op (i.e. community ownership of the means of production), trucks are very popular. In part because they are useful tools in carrying out the business within that socialist system, but also because outsiders emulate to try and convey similar social standing.
If there is a political statement to be found in there, which may be a stretch, to me it would be that trucks = socialism. But when I look beyond my bubble, I'm left with the impression that trucks are, if anything, especially stateside, a statement at the compete opposite end of the spectrum.
What approximate political position do you believe is inbuilt into the design of modern trucks?
I would say crocs and pickup trucks are opposite. Many many people hate crocs and how they look but they are in many regards actually an extremely practical shoe for most peoples' day to day life. The opposite is true for trucks.
Does everyone here live in a studio apartment? Pickup trucks are the most utilitarian vehicle you can buy. Whether you use it for hauling furniture from the antique store, or you transport firewood or a load of topsoil or throw a kayak in the back, or one of a million other jobs. I don't get how people can become so radicalized that they develop a hatred for pickup trucks. We are doomed as a country
I’ve owned several pickups. My current pickup has two doors, a vinyl floor, roll up windows, a key to open the door, and dents all over it. That’s a utilitarian vehicle. The $60k luxury barges I see at the mall are not that.
Exactly when I see a pickup drive by that that is dented or scratched up and has a bunch of shit in the back... ya know is a vehicle that has been used for stuff a truck makes sense for and I think that is great. (These trucks are usually smaller trucks too like rangers and s10)
99% of trucks are not that these days and that may be being generous.
Also... spend half the money on a beater truck and the other half on a civic so you dont take up the whole damn road on your commute to your office job and kill me when your comically oversized vehicles rides over mine in a car crash. I am tired of seeing $70,000 trucks without a scratch on them being used like they are a commuter sedan, its selfish and stupid.
I'm probably missing your point, but I don't mean in the sense of them being a common type of footwear, I mean they were on runways, worn by celebrities, etc. https://www.whowhatwear.co.uk/crocs-shoes/slide4
Pickups are actually one of the worst vehicles imaginable in the snow. You have to throw a lot of weight in the rear to get traction, the wheelbase is long so that spinning out of control is far more likely and terrifying, trucks are super high off the ground so roll over risk is high (ESPECIALLY with lifted trucks) and worst of all extremely heavy vehicles like big trucks have a horrendous stopping distance in the snow which is by far and away the most important thing in the snow.
If you want a vehicle that will handle moderately deep snow the best a subaru station wagon is probably the ideal shape, or at low speeds a shorter jeep wrangler if you are actually going off road.
Even where I grew up in northern maine, where everyone had two trucks, 10 feet of snow per winter was reliably expected, and everyone runs a farm, very few people would plow their own driveway.
For personal driveways, people had cheap push snow blowers. For the roads, we had big plow trucks and literal construction equipment was used for large roads and parking lots.
Very few people plow, because plowing is harder than snow blowing, more damaging to your lawn and driveway than snowblowing, and just all around less effective. And the few people who do actively plow their own driveway will either start a business to do other people's driveways (a common way for 16 year olds to make money in the winter) or just straight up plow neighbors driveway for free or payment.
Even in this literal heaven for trucks, full of farmers, outdoor activities, mud, and construction, 8 out of 10 trucks were driveway queens.
Interesting, where I grew up both snow and trucks where significantly less common, but that meant infrastructure to deal with it was also more adhock.
Back then I would say around 1/3 to 1/4th of households in the area with large trucks had a snow plow, but I only knew one guy with a snowblower. Of course that also related to how long it took the state to deal with back roads after even a minor snow event.
Yah but even then, I suspect a 4x4 suv would be better suited than a pickup for that... its just people use absolute incredible shit tier beater trucks for plowing similar to how people use shit tier cars to deliver pizzas. I dont think its because a beater truck is better than say a 4x4 SUV, it just is (was?) easier to find a beater truck.
If somebody is using a nice truck to snow plow they are pissing away money. Ice, constant torquing stress on the frame, hitting shit hidden in the snow, salt on main roads everywhere (depending on place) etc... it is fastest way to reduce the value of a vehicle next to driving it into a brickwall or driving it off a bridge into the ocean.
I live next to a few people who keep their $80,000 truck immaculate, and will never touch an unpaved field with it. The best trucks for driving in snow and mud are the trucks that actual farm hands drive, and are usually far less decked out, have mismatched paint schemes, and are covered in scratches and dirt. Completely their choice to make that purchase, obviously, but I’ve seen worse vehicle choices.
However when my wife walks past one and the hood is over her head, knowing that this is possible because it’s exempt from regulation as a ”farm vehicle” seems like a corruption of government regulation.
I don’t think we need to make people prove how they will be using a vehicle, so maybe we should just require different license classes based on vehicle’s current weight and/or height? Driving a 7,000 lb truck that is 6.5’ tall is not the same as driving a passenger car.
A basic driving license will allow you to drive a 26,000lb GVWR box truck with an actual length of 34 feet. Is this the right call? It doesn't seem to be a problem, because very few people are buying such large trucks for daily drivers.
The talk about "farm vehicle" is a red herring in this whole thread. Actual farm plates are rare. The significant distinction is cosplayer vs contractor, which happens to be independent of commercial plates.
The right answer is probably charging yearly registration (/road use) fees based on GVWR. This is already common for trailers. There should be a part that scales as the road wear from weight does. I think it's something like the third or fourth power?
What's really scary are the RV exemptions in the majority of US states[0]. As that list notes in 34 states you can drive ANYTHING regardless of size or weight as long as it's classified as a "recreational vehicle".
I live in a rural area where pickup trucks are used for farm tasks, hunting (deer season, coyote season is every day), construction, towing, etc at a much higher rate than you probably see across the US in average.
Among the community of people that use their trucks for "real work" (whatever their definition of that may be) an immaculately kept truck like the one you're describing would be referred to as a "pavement princess".
Ok, but most trucks sold today are indeed pavement princesses. For every one you see in the country doing work, there's 5 others being parked on tenth/quarter-acre lots in the cities/suburbs.
My guess is it’s closer to 25%, once you consider people who use a snow plow, haul a boat/camper/trailer etc. Now sure many of these could be replaced with smaller trucks without extended cabs etc, but the choice of pickup truck was still useful.
Pickup trucks are horrendous for snowy conditions. You literally have to put extra material in them to make them manageable.
The farmers in my family do have pickup trucks. 40 year old ones with standard cabs and no frills.
There is virtually no good function for a modern leather appointed king cab other than signaling your group. Which is fine! Half of car ownership is that but do t pretend that even half of trucks are used for some truck like usage. Heck the half that are is for hauling boats or rvs once or twice a summer.
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. I live in an area where even people with tiny houses have a boat, and they don’t bring it out just once or twice in a summer. And once you need that pickup truck instead of a Prius, the King cab and leather is just a luxury upgrade like anything else. I see plenty of contractors, etc., around here with big shiny pickup trucks.
Let me guess, you've never heard of the term "Pavement princess".
Yes, farmers use pickup trucks, and they're great for that purpose. Nobody is arguing or disagreeing with you on that point.
Nobody is arguing against the purchasing of pickup trucks in the general sense. We're arguing against the purchase of a pickup truck as a daily driver. Something that will be used to commute and buy groceries.
Here in the frozen hellscape of maine, nearly all snow mangement is done by dedicated equipment. They use skidsteers, dump trucks, front end loaders with giant buckets or snow blowers, and what few trucks they do have don't plow, they spread dirt or salt, which the dump trucks also can do so they are only used to dirt/salt small parking lots.
Individuals buy push snow blowers or snow blower attachments to their lawn tractors.
Occasionally a business will contract someone with a plow on a truck but that's not common because the contractors who actually deal with this regularly have dedicated equipment that's better than a plow on a truck and using a shitty plow on a standard truck is actually not easy.
Even the parking lot in my private apartment complex is cleaned after a snow storm by a company with multiple front end loaders and skidsteers.
https://d3v9db8ug40up8.cloudfront.net/styles/large/s3/2020-0...
This is colloquially called Unimog (successor, kind of), a general purpose utility vehicle with awesome drivetrain, huge tires, great weight distribution, not too heavy, serves winter and summer in several roles.
Yet, many people also have pickup trucks in Norway specifically to deal with moving snow which is what I was referring to. You don’t need a high percentage of big trucks to do this, but it is utility you get from a truck you don’t get from a model 3.
Sure, regular sedans are no use for plowing private roads or parking lots. (Anything municipal gets plowed with larger trucks.)
As you say, you don't need very many pickups for that. The fraction of American pickups that are used for snow plowing is pretty much irrelevant to this conversation.
Don’t forget that the Census Bureau counts every town of 2,500 in the middle of farm country as an “urban area.” I’m in an “urban area” and I can drive to horse farms in 5 minutes.
And of course those horse farms only demand a big truck if you are doing big work on the horse farm. If all you need is AWD you don't need a big truck.
You asked why, and the answer is cost vs benefit. Car styling alone doesn’t justify the risk to pedestrians, large truck utility can. Yes, this tradeoff kills people, but so do all sorts of things like not physically preventing cars from driving 80+MPH.
This is a non answer. Australia has a vehicle style commonly referred to as a "ute"[1]. I think it stand for "utility". Which is basically a car with a truck bed in the back. This provides many of the advantages of a pickup without the increased danger to pedestrians. Why are car companies not marketing/selling these to the average consumer instead of the monster RAMs and F150s? I suspect the reason has everything to do with styling and little to do with utility.
edit: I suppose it's not unintended consequences. It's LBJ's corrupt decision to trade tariffs for votes / curry favor with unions that harms US consumers.
Chicken tax doesn't apply if you build it here. And Toyota builds some stuff here, so they could build trucks here. Or, just pay the tax, like Ford does for the Transit Express (although they did try tax dodging for several years).
A bigger problem is fuel efficiency standards that encourage larger footprints. You can't hit the mandated mpgs in a compact truck, so enlarge the truck to make it hit the standards.
The reason is because ANCAP and Euro NCAP test for pedestrian safety and US NCAP does not. They have been sitting on their hands since 2015. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-419
I agree that for the average consumer the a car chassis is fine. Unfortunately it’s not going to haul a large horse trailer over rough terrain and we don’t force a special permit for full sized trucks or have sufficient gas taxes to discourage them.
As to why Ford etc is targeting regular people with these monstrous trucks it’s both profitable and current regulations promote their sale. You can dig into the history of these regulations but as far as I can tell it’s a mix of trying to appease businesses and a specific voter demographic. Call it corruption or giving people what they want, it’s not going away anytime soon.
I would argue the minivan is the most comically underloved vehicle in the US given how perfectly it fulfills what people want from their vehicle. There is little reason to buy a ute style vehicle over a minivan in my opinion. I had to buy a used car last year (I have no kids, just a girlfriend and no plans in the near future for kids if ever.. lol who can afford that shit?) and used car prices were/are? absolutely insane. I widened my search to pretty much any car type and decided to look for a remote job/job with a very short commute so I wouldnt have to buy a gas efficient vehicle. I wanted basically a honda civic type vehicle but even old beat up honda civics with 250,000 miles driven by high schoolers were still far too expensive for what you were getting.
...then I realized that one of the vehicles taxi companies use are toyota siennas and read some articles about how minivans had actually barely gone up in price even though people were desperate for cars.
I got a 2006 awd sienna with nice newer tires, a 3500 pound towing package, roof racks, sunroof, power doors and hatch, disc brakes, an absolutely cavernous interior with removable seats that can fit a full size plywood sheet, window shades, a leather interior and the top trim level audio system with a newer android touchscreen radio unit for $6000. Yah it had 180,000 but on a sienna if it is maintained well that is nothing. I mean.. all the electrical shit still works on it somehow? Also this thing is fun to drive, it isnt a sports car by any means but steering is sensitive and accurate and the wheelbase is so long it eats bumps like a couch even though the suspension isnt floaty.
If I had bought a civic it would have had 250,000+ miles, cloth seats, shit tires, huge dents and probably a replacement panel that was a mismatched color along with innumerable random small problems.
Americans hate the idea of owning a minivan more than the idea of not owning a car and it is hilarious because minivans are what you get when you take a hard look at american life and design a large vehicle for it that ticks off every box. Unless you are towing very large things frequently ever other large vehicle is a joke compared to a minivan.
I mean.. sliding doors yo... I will never buy a large vehicle without them after owning one with them.
Minivans are extreme popular. You see rows of Odysseys and Siennas at soccer games and military housing. The bumper stickers are essential for finding ones own in the lot.
Mostly insecure rich people (or desperately wannabe rich), especially "overcompensating" macho-men and short-women, buy SUVs and shiny non-work big trucks.
In the USA we have sport-utes, which was the original term for SUVs. Don’t know why that was forgotten and replaced with MORE syllables, but there you go.
Now we have no small trucks, and a continued parade of bloated, impractical junk that manufacturers are pushing as “small.” The new Ford Ranger and Chevy Colorado stand out as regressions from their former incarnations, and the Maverick is another joke. They all force giant four-door cabs and puny beds on all buyers.
Thus they lack the usefulness of a proper truck, and the safety of the “utes” you describe.
