Trucks are demonstrably more dangerous than other vehicles on the road.
My unpopular opinion is that truck drivers should pay a higher penalty when they’re involved in accidents. Every moving violation in a truck gets bumped up, one degree, from civil to misdemeanor, from misdemeanor to felony. By driving a pickup truck you are choosing to endanger other drivers on the road.
I agree. Funny enough, when the taller vehicles were first becoming popular, “I can see everything” was popular. Well, if your visibility is improved, you should be penalized more for being at fault.
Even more so with all these driving assistant systems, if you rely too heavily on them (thinking OK to text and drive), that’s on you for still causing an accident. Those systems are to aid alert drivers, not replace them.
marketing works.
i drive a small hatchback, and everyone who isn’t another small hatchback owner makes passive aggressive commentary about my car. The social pressure to conform and buy a mid-sized or larger SUV/truck is insane, and most folks cave to it. (and now the new thing is ‘you have to buy an EV’ social pressure).
especially as a well-paid middle aged person, the implication is that I am an economic failure at life, and ‘self-respect’ demands I drive a large expensive vehicle to display my status. Like I have had many folks lecture me about how at my age/money I need to own a ‘nice’ car (e.g. 50-60K+ MSRP)
I am in the market for a new car and I am going to get another small hatchback. I have looked at small trucks and other vehicles but the economics don’t make any sense. I’d pay a lot more money for no additional benefit.
FWIW my first car was a 10 year old hand me down SUV. And I absolutely hated driving it. It was huge, slow, and got like 8mpg, but my idiot parents insisted I had to drive it because it was ‘safe’.
This comment reads remarkably similar to my own situation and past. Driving an '89 blazer while broke was enough to make me never want to drive anything wasteful of gas again. And yeah the SUV roll factor somehow was ignored by my parents too.
I actively despise those massive pavement princesses and lose respect for any person who has one. They’re a must-have in the “macho insecure man-child” starter pack.
I may be in the minority but I hate trucks. I always will have a smaller sedan. Am US.
I don’t see how that could be a minority opinion. Don’t let the “Americans are bad people” posts get to you.
It’s not getting to me at all. Just saying where I am, majority truck central is a thing.
I would like a small, pre-2012 truck that is just used for hauling shit I need to the house, like wood, pellets, feed, etc.
What I find are dick-measuring vehicles where you have to lean forward to ensure no pedestrians are in front.
Still searching…
Slate truck. Ford Fathom. Only options I’m aware of in the USA.
Ford maverick, size of the old rangers with 40 mpg
That cab though lol I legit just want a single cab truck with no gimmicks, but “the market” all trends to “big car with bed” because they can mark up the price.
P much same. Have a crossover bc poor and that was the only used car in my area that was clean title, under 200k miles and not a shitty American-made brand, but it averages 32 mpg and I’m wanting my next vehicle to be a hybrid at minimum.
Seeing pristine baby coddling pickups pisses me off every time.
Am not US but otherwise felt the same, for a long time.
Now recently road conditions have been deteriorating quite badly where I live. With potholes everywhere, sedans and other small cars with delicate suspensions just get damaged all the time by the road. This, along with heavy snow and slush in the winter, has caused me to rethink my stance.
Maybe it’s because I am in tech, but not a single person in my friends group drives a pickup truck. Even now that I’ve moved to Wyoming, there are no truck owners. To be fair, pickups suck in our weather. A lot of Subaru and vans though.
I guess what I am saying is that maybe gas guzzling pickups aren’t an American thing asuch as they are a specific type of American thing.
Shh, American bad!
I also work in tech (shocking, I know). Pretty sure the only truck drivers in my org are a few men in the c-suite and one dude who has a small daily driver Ridgeline haha.
And people pay 80k plus for those. It’s ridiculous. I can’t imagine just throwing away thousands a year on gas, maintenance, insurance, truck nuts etc. all while renting an apartment.
For the 2027 model year, GM/Chevrolet are bringing back the
350408! 6.7L of V8 power, up from a measly 6.2L!350ci is 5.7l
Prius go wooooosh
As an American, I cannot confirm this.
This big trucks are basically just worse minivans for the most part anyway.
No third row seating option, similar cargo capacity, and significantly worse gas mileage.
Obviously you can tow stuff. But outside of that? Meh. I’d rather have a small truck like a Ridgeline if I were to get one at all.
The thing with the Ridgeline is that it is a mid size truck that is still unibody with a max tow capacity of 5000lbs. The smaller, cheaper Hyundai Santa Cruz also has a tow capacity of 5000lbs. That’s why I went with the Santa Cruz. I do wish it had a foot more of bed length.
I haven’t done a ton of research into trucks, but if I were to get one I’d want something with at least 3k towing and electrified. I’m never going to buy an internal combustion engine vehicle again.
Rivians sell pretty well from what I hear.
Wish they’d sell them in Australia.
Rivians are uggo and too big. I’ll have a nice, sensible (electric) hatchback or sedan, please.
Rivian R2 is a reasonable size.
Source: on the waiting list
That thing is still massive 🫠
R3X for you then!
You do you, boo. I drove it and it was just right for me, even in the streets of downtown Chicago.
What other kind of vehicle can carry 300 pounds of 'murican fat?
What’s that in metric? 600kg?
About 2167 big macs
300? Those are rookie numbers.
It’s hard to find small cars in the us these days and if you do they are always clapped out shitboxes. Therefore your options are truck, suv, or a crossover.
corolla, mazda3, civic, elantra are all great cars and not shitboxes. what are you talking about?
it’s your mentality that drives people to drive huge cars they don’t need. a base level small car is 25K and you can lux them up to be luxury cars at around 30K, all without losing the mileage and safety.
I have no clue what you’re talking about or what would illicit an upvote here. There are plenty of small cars here. I have only owned them for 20 years now. I have seen them go from being the standard in cities to being on the downslope but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Wtf is a “clapped out shitbox” anyhow?
Plenty of sedan and hatchback options on offer from Japanese and European automakers. Some are even built in the US.
