4 ms·

The 'insanely oversized "trucks"' are necessary for reasons probably not evident if you grew up in a country like NT. I'm from a small town in rural Ontario, Ca

The 'insanely oversized "trucks"' are necessary for reasons probably not evident if you grew up in a country like NT. I'm from a small town in rural Ontario, Canada where most people drive a 4WD vehicle largely because they'd never get out of their snow-filled driveway in a tiny European style car. Lots of country roads are literally impassable without a large machine; having a truck of some kind is more or less a necessity for plenty of rural folks.

triceratops 4y ago
What explains the abundance of trucks that I see here in suburbia? Or in places like the Bay Area, where there's never, ever any snow.
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  I'm not sure, I've never lived in the Bay Area.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  Outdoor activities? Labor jobs? I don't think you can judge without knowing their lifestyle. Even then, who is to say who can get what? I don't see why trucks are one of things people can't buy just because they prefer it. I'm sure everyone owns something that another person would consider frivolous.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    > I don't see why trucks are one of things people can't buy just because they prefer it. I was responding to GP who said trucks are necessary in rural areas with snow and rough roads. Obviously people can buy what they want, and other people can judge them for their choices as they want. > I'm sure everyone owns something that another person would consider frivolous. Definitely. I'm sure there are people who judge my purchases - I wish them well. But most frivolous purchases don't kill pedestrians at alarming rates, or guzzle absurd amounts of gas pointlessly. Pickup trucks are the pit bulls of car ownership.
gopher_space 4y ago
Yeah but thirty years ago they were all little 2WD Nissans and Toyotas with a few bales of hay in the back. The trucks you're talking about were kind of family tractors and would rarely be used for distance. They all got like 9mpg and just needed to run when something got stuck.
- yissp 4y ago
  Hardly anyone is making compact pickups anymore. Even models that used to be in that class (e.g. Tacoma, Ranger) seem to have gotten a lot bigger over the past 10 years. I find it disappointing, I always thought they were a great compromise between fuel efficiency while still retaining most of the utility of a regular truck.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Huh? 30 years ago Nissans and Toyotas had negligible pickup marketshare (at least in the US, not sure about Canada?). Anyway, the average retail price of gas back then was ~$1/gallon, so 9mpg wasn't a major deal (considerably cheaper than a 30mpg sedan today).
  - gopher_space 4y ago
    This was soon enough after the oil embargo that mpg was still on everyone's mind, and people didn't really use 4WD vehicles for general transportation at that point. Just big, uncomfortable, expensive to maintain and operate vehicles that you'd generally use for a specific purpose.

triceratops 4y ago

What explains the abundance of trucks that I see here in suburbia? Or in places like the Bay Area, where there's never, ever any snow.

honkdaddy 4y ago
I'm not sure, I've never lived in the Bay Area.
hunterb123 4y ago
Outdoor activities? Labor jobs? I don't think you can judge without knowing their lifestyle. Even then, who is to say who can get what? I don't see why trucks are one of things people can't buy just because they prefer it. I'm sure everyone owns something that another person would consider frivolous.
- triceratops 4y ago
  > I don't see why trucks are one of things people can't buy just because they prefer it. I was responding to GP who said trucks are necessary in rural areas with snow and rough roads. Obviously people can buy what they want, and other people can judge them for their choices as they want. > I'm sure everyone owns something that another person would consider frivolous. Definitely. I'm sure there are people who judge my purchases - I wish them well. But most frivolous purchases don't kill pedestrians at alarming rates, or guzzle absurd amounts of gas pointlessly. Pickup trucks are the pit bulls of car ownership.

gopher_space 4y ago

Yeah but thirty years ago they were all little 2WD Nissans and Toyotas with a few bales of hay in the back. The trucks you're talking about were kind of family tractors and would rarely be used for distance. They all got like 9mpg and just needed to run when something got stuck.

yissp 4y ago
Hardly anyone is making compact pickups anymore. Even models that used to be in that class (e.g. Tacoma, Ranger) seem to have gotten a lot bigger over the past 10 years. I find it disappointing, I always thought they were a great compromise between fuel efficiency while still retaining most of the utility of a regular truck.
throwaway894345 4y ago
Huh? 30 years ago Nissans and Toyotas had negligible pickup marketshare (at least in the US, not sure about Canada?). Anyway, the average retail price of gas back then was ~$1/gallon, so 9mpg wasn't a major deal (considerably cheaper than a 30mpg sedan today).
- gopher_space 4y ago
  This was soon enough after the oil embargo that mpg was still on everyone's mind, and people didn't really use 4WD vehicles for general transportation at that point. Just big, uncomfortable, expensive to maintain and operate vehicles that you'd generally use for a specific purpose.