Comments
DirectorBeneficial48 t1_j8a72lt wrote
The weight and size are truly ridiculous. A push back to smaller trucks would be a great start. The vast majority of pickup owners are compensating, rather than actually using it as a means of hauling stuff.
xTheShrike t1_j8at9d3 wrote
I bought a pickup truck when I was renovating the house I lived in. Originally my wife and I just had sedans and we would use the pickup once or twice a week to haul stuff around. This proposal is insane and not seeing any type of nuance to the problem. There are many people who use their pickup trucks once in awhile and are in no way "compensating for anything".
nasty_brutish_longer t1_j8bb61a wrote
I did 15 years in commercial renovation. You didn't need a pickup truck. I know this because I never had a pickup truck.
There are a lot of people out there who like to feel that they need a truck, and buying one is incredibly easy. I can't know if that applies to you, or if you honestly thought it would make your life easier. But with truck sales being almost entirely feelings based these days, it's hard to give anyone the benefit of the doubt anymore.
xTheShrike t1_j8bc6tb wrote
I don't understand, if you did commercial renovations you probably used your companies equipment? I didn't have that luxury. How are you coming to the conclusion that truck sales are "feelings based"? Your own feelings?
nasty_brutish_longer t1_j8bmqhz wrote
I got supplies delivered. I hired out carting. My equipment fit in a hatchback. It's not hard. Plenty of trades do need a truck--though usually a van--but that tends to be for a mobile toolbox, not hauling.
I can't, of course, know what motivates everyone's vehicle purchases. But with truck sales up, new home builds flat or declining and recent spikes in disposable income, it's hard not to see vanity when highways become seas of clean pickup beds and king cabs.
DirectorBeneficial48 t1_j8bkday wrote
What you said has virtually nothing to do with what I said. Please re-read what I posted, starting with
> A push back to smaller trucks would be a great start. The vast majority of pickup owners are compensating, rather than actually using it as a means of hauling stuff.
DancingCavalier t1_j8e5qx3 wrote
Yes, this is the thing. I don't think people realize that pick up trucks being as large as they are is a new phenomenon. 40 years ago they were way smaller. I can't imagine that the needs of most individuals changed in that time to require them to be as enormous as they tend to be now.
well_damm t1_j8aac5h wrote
I agree, nothing more infuriating than some obtuse person buying a big vehicle as a form of “protection” for themselves.
We see plenty of these individuals on the road, they think because they’re driving some Escalade, Cherokee , X5, etc they don’t have to pay attention or are worse drivers because they got a “big car”.
SyndicalistCPA OP t1_j8abteu wrote
A pedestrian crash rating is an interesting option as well. A more "in your face" rating on cars might deter some people from buying them and it would also be another method in which to tax the shit out of these things.
Legislator Seeks Pedestrian-Safety Rating on SUVs as Death Numbers Rise (caranddriver.com)
ManchurianPandaDate t1_j8a80zr wrote
Something about a non tradesperson owning a pickup truck and just letting the bed fill with random debris makes me angry. I’m a tradesman and I have a truck because I need one and I use it to do work but the other day I saw a graphic of how the cab and bed relationship of pickup trucks has changed over the last 60 years and it’s upsetting. Most trucks now only have like a 3 or 4 foot long bed and the rest is cab for passengers.
Mysterious-Change954 t1_j8bcan2 wrote
Wow. Thats crazy.
I wonder why a car company would alter the design of their vehicle. Could it be that there are more Non-trades people buying these trucks and they changed the design to match the majority of the market?
Perhaps you should stop worrying about what other people do with their truck beds.
mikevago t1_j8c6jql wrote
> Could it be that there are more Non-trades people buying these trucks and they changed the design to match the majority of the market?
Right. That's the whole issue. There are fewer actually useful trucks on the market because the industry has turned trucks into minivans, to cater to suburbanites who want to feel "rugged" when they squeeze their oversized toys through the Starbucks drive-thru.
ManchurianPandaDate t1_j8d77si wrote
Yes exactly
ManchurianPandaDate t1_j8bpsfq wrote
Hey if you wanna buy something you don’t need by all means go for it. But tell me to keep my thoughts to myself ? Lol ok keep dreaming buddy. Maybe buy a rake to get all those sticks and leaves out of your truck bed and people on both sides won’t silently judge you everywhere you go.
whybother5000 t1_j89wu7q wrote
I find car culture so toxic. Maybe it was always this way.
EasyGibson t1_j8a47ae wrote
When you say car culture, do you mean societies that revolve around the use of the automobile as a central focus for everything, or like, the guys that hang out in parking lots and look at each others engines on summer nights?
whybother5000 t1_j8a52cn wrote
I meant the former. Enthusiasts I hope are better behaved. Though in JC you see the not so well behaved enthusiasts as well.
EasyGibson t1_j8aqmny wrote
Oh indeed you do.
Brudesandwich t1_j8a58ql wrote
Not a bad idea. Most of these trucks aren't even used for hauling large or heavy items.
Jazzhands23PartDeux t1_j8d8x4e wrote
Something not yet mentioned is that heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear on our roads so it makes sense to tax them more
MightyBigMinus t1_j8a2au1 wrote
I wish we could put an air pollution toll-tax on every car in and out of the holland tunnel.
Supablue24 t1_j8a3quk wrote
I agree. Fuck trucks.
SyndicalistCPA OP t1_j8a5qvb wrote
Only these cuties are acceptable to me:
thegreatestrobot3 t1_j8bs3d2 wrote
Would just like to put in 2 cents for tradespeople who actually use/need a truck. I think JC is a great example of an environment where car usage could be really drastically reduced, but this city is already getting harder and harder for people who work for a living, taxing people for owning a vehicle they need for work would just be making this worse
ILoveHotDogsAndBacon t1_j8bbk01 wrote
As someone who owns a car I agree with this 100%. I need a car for work so I own an appropriate city sized car. I can afford something bigger and fancier but what for? I live in a city. I spend most of my time idling at red lights with only me in the car. There is no need for me to own a massive SUV other than to protect myself in the event of a collision with another huge and unnecessary vehicle or the rare Home Depot run which now turns into 2 trips with my small car.
Id love to see the market for these stupid vehicles killed with taxes and high insurance but our elected officials will never do it. It’s political auicide
badquarter t1_j8a0rv9 wrote
What if they need it for work or have a large family? Sounds like something that's progressive that will be regressive in practice.
Ben10Button t1_j8a1cnc wrote
Other developed countries seem to do just fine with smaller vehicles
scubastefon t1_j8a2bsm wrote
On average, they’re all skinnier than we are also.
SyndicalistCPA OP t1_j8a3ryb wrote
Registration fees are barely $200 when used (should really be more). I'm pretty sure a business can easily pay for that.
The average family-size in the US is 3.15 and 3.17 in NJ. A regular 4 car Honda Civic holds 5 people. How large do you want to make this "large family" in your hypothetical. How much more catering should we do to people's individual choices?
On top of being more dangerous for pedestrians, including large families, they also wear down our roads much quicker.
Shit, just look at the electric Hummer. 9K pounds, 0-60 in 3 seconds. How that thing is even legal while I cannot drive an electric golf cart is beyond me.
objectimpermanence t1_j8b2eru wrote
People like to say that the choice to buy an SUV is driven by practicality.
But minivans and station wagons are amazingly practical while also being less harmful to other road users and less likely to rollover than a top-heavy SUV. But they get ignored because SUVs are cool and minivans and station wagons are not.
What sucks is that huge, heavy EVs like the Hummer EV are going to create a domino effect that will force other classes of cars to get bigger.
Crash tests are being redesigned to account for the emergence of heavier, taller vehicles. That means that smaller cars will need to be beefed up (i.e., get larger and more expensive) in order to protect their passengers.
This new test by the IIHS is a great example of that. It was designed to better simulate the impact from a truck or SUV than prior tests. Popular cars like the Camry and Altima performed poorly on this new test and, as a result, Toyota and Nissan essentially have no choice but to make next the generation of those cars larger and heavier in order to get good safety ratings.
SyndicalistCPA OP t1_j8b5d1s wrote
Thanks for the article on the crash test. Looking forward to reading it tomorrow.
SyndicalistCPA OP t1_j89uvdv wrote
With how big American cars and trucks are becoming and in addition to their electrification (batteries are heavy as fuck), maybe its time we start considering this here. The increasing weight means that getting hit by a vehicle means there is a lot greater chance of serious injury.