A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Transcription
A picture of a hand holding remote car keys pointed at a white pickup truck. Below that is the text:
In the US, 75% of truck owners tow only once a year or less. Nearly 70% of them go off-road once a year or less. Additionally, 35% of truck owners haul something in their truck beds once a year or less
Find Sources @ unbelievablefactsblog.com
Yet that one time that you need it, it’s quite nice to have.
Really that summarizes this whole debate. There are absolutely people that don't need it but buy one for a litany of bad reasons. Then, there are entire swaths of territory where having a pickup is just plain necessary. Live up north in a rural area? You probably have both a trailer and a PU to tow it because you need to be self sufficient, and have a lot of long distance hauling jobs.
I'd suggest though that the trend of absurdly high hood lines and everything being a monster truck aren't helping those populations either.
International Harvester made some great trucks. Fuck, chevy s-10s were handy and capable when I was a kid. Now everything is ginormous and crew cabbed so one person can drive around in a combine level shitwagon
The clearance is a very important consideration though. Where I am the bush is life so you NEED clearance just to drive on many 'roads' to get over huge ruts, small fallen trees, or just general bushwacking. Trucks like these are more akin to work trucks and not everyday unless driven by owner necessity (can't afford a 2nd car atm). Funny you should mention it, but my buddy is a mechanic and has a lifted S-10 that he's used more than once to get us out of a jam. That is often the case: the one with lowest clearance needs the most help.
and yet the overwhelming majority of them are pavement princesses who never see work, much less work in the dirt.
yeah, i've seen lifted s10s, they're still smaller than today's jacked up shithaulers lol
Idk your life but I've yet to be in a situation where a minivan wasn't good enough.
The other 99.9% of the time you get better efficiency, space for 8 people and a smaller car
Here are a few options to remedy this rare problem.
The first option doesn’t act as a continued mode of transportation, and the second option still requires someone owning a truck lmao.
Those are both of the reasons why it works.
Yes, but it doesn't require everyone owning a truck.
I didn’t say it did. I’m saying that when you need it, and you’re the guy that owns the truck, it’s nice. I’m not talking some lifted thing, but a midsize pickup is nice to have when you need it.
I think in his scenario, the friend who owns the truck is in the 15% who use the bed regularly
Yeah, my friends who still lend us their trucks are literally farmers, lol.
That’s a massive assumption and completely ignore that said family member may only use that bed once or twice a month to help others. And they would still be ridiculed by these people.
No I think you're misunderstanding me. When he said "you should just borrow a truck from a friend", he was describing what should be happening in an ideal situation. The ideal situation being that the only truck owners be people who legitimately need and use the truck for regular truck-related work. Thus whomever you borrow the truck from would be a person who actually uses the truck.
The whole purpose of this thread is calling out the problem of people who own a truck simply because "muh truck". Even smaller ones have a different gear ratio than cars to favor torque instead of gas mileage, so I believe it is a fair complaint within the context of this community.
Everyone owns a truck? Where's mine?
It's even nicer to have that big item delivered and still come out on top in gas savings.
Rental.
Also your comment remind me of people having spare car.
A spare vehicle is legitimately useful if you have an actual use case and are fortunate enough to have the space for it. My winter car allows me to do all of my own maintenance without having to worry about stranding myself at home.
True, but most case i see is people spend more than necessary maintaining a vehicle they don't have a place to store for an emergency that only came once every few years, which will end up selling it anyway. Just like truck, it only works for a minority of people.
I suspect for many it is just a convenient excuse to buy a new vehicle because they're tired of their current one and need a way to justify the cost to themselves.
You know what you can do if you need to haul something and don't have a truck?
Rent a trailer!
I like to think that people own trucks because they don't know how to back a trailer. Or more humourously, because they don't know trailers exist.
Over time that's as expensive or more as getting a vehicle with more storage lol
Hey I think I found the issue, you rent a trailer when you need it, you don't just rent it long term.
Also, even if you own a trailer, you don't have to tow it all the time.
Given the cost of a truck vs hiring a trailer, I have no idea how that can possibly be true.
How many rentals to hit 2-5k.
I doubt many people are driving around a $5k 2024 truck, but let's say it's reasonable or say that this is the difference between what you could otherwise have and what the truck costs. Let's also say you own the truck 10 years.
I don't know what your average trailer hire costs in the US. Maybe $20 for a few hours? Let's assume $50. So you need to hire a trailer 100 times in those 10 years, or 10 times a year.
Though as someone who doesn't own a truck but who hires a trailer once a year or so, if I have multiple things I save them up and do them together in one trailer hire, so a bit of planning makes it even less worth having a truck.
This doesn't even include the extra gas a truck guzzles, the cost of bigger tires, the cost of maintaince (bigger parts are usually more expensive, bigger engine holds more fluids).
I went from driving a 4x4 jeep to driving a small hatchback and the amount of money I'm saving is astronomical.