Met a guy a few days ago who had just purchased a new Chevy Silverado. The hood was at his shoulder. He installed a front camera because he can’t see shit from the driver’s seat. It’s not even lifted.
When will the lawsuits for these fundamentally unsafe designs start?
Ralph Nader was a bullshit pushing con artist. That said, I used to have to drive a 2015 ish Dodge 3500 diesel for work (construction, supply delivery) and that one was horribly bad. Not just from the hood height, that wasn’t far out of line, but you sat so low down relative to the hood height, 5 foot tall bollards off the port bow would disappear from view 20 feet away. This is directly all due to crash regulations, vehicles you can see out of are riskier for passengers. mid teens camaros were the same way.
I just realized i was better off with my early 90s junk i can see out of.
My favorite vehicle I’ve ever owned was a 4 cylinder manual gen 1 Tacoma.
A 2010 Chrysler minivan is a superior work vehicle to modern pickup trucks in every meaningful way.
If you have a pickup with a 4 ft bed, you have an suv somebody took the back row of seats out-of, chopped the roof off of, and sold to somebody who was to insecure to drive a vehicle that didn’t reassure them they’re a big strong manly man.
America won’t allow Japanese light duty pickup trucks to be imported because it would kill 3 separate inferior markets.
Fully agree. I think most modern trucks are a minivan but without an enclosed hatch. They’re just incompatible. If you want a truck you want bedspace for hauling, it’s not supposed to be a driving the family around vehicle. That’s a van, or in the 70s terms that’s a stationwagon. They’re two completely separate vehicles.
Instead people are paying over 70k for a vehicle that does both of those things poorly.
It’s not just driving a off road capable vehicle exclusively on road but mainly installing modifications that look like it would increase the vehicles off roading capabilities but in reality hinder it. Take the lift on the truck i posted above, it has a long travel suspension which when installed correctly would vastly improve the trucks ability to handle trails at high speeds however because they chose height over suspension travel they’ve created a truck with none of the benefits of a long travel suspension with a vastly increased risk of rolling over. They are trying to cosplay as a monster truck without understanding that a monster truck has tires that are almost as wide as they are tall for stability which you physically cannot do on a road legal truck without it being two or three lanes wide.
This is why I like a neutral riding position with the pegs below my hips, I can stand out of the saddle and let the bike bump over whatever. Cruisers with the pegs too forward to stand on, or crotch rockets where you’re doing a pushup anyway, don’t easily allow for that.
this also lead me to longboarding - I loved skating short decks as a kid, but the vibration transmitted from street skateboard wheels wrecks my ability to enjoy it with knee and back pain. big, squishy longboard wheels just eat the cracks and rocks up and I can ride for hours.
I’ve never heard the term before, but my first guess would be someone who has a castle on wheels. So an SUV owner, or pickup owner who doesn’t actually use it for its intended purpose.
I heard it from my truck friends, and this is what I understand too. A truck driver who “has” to own a truck for some flimsy reason, but end up driving it to their office every day. The truck never (or rarely) goes off road, tows anything, or is used for actual truck things.
In essence, you don’t need a truck, you could easily rent one from the home depot for $20 twice a year and be perfectly fine
They’re very common in my country. Most taxis are Toyota pickup trucks. They are great on dirt roads and you can fit a lot of people, animals, and groceries in the back.
As someone from the USA, specifically in Texas, it’s hilarious to watch people lose their minds when you tell them Mexicans or Brazilians are Americans as well.
Or you pretend to not understand the (localish on a continental level) language you’re speaking. I’m not from the states, don’t call me an American, if we’re speaking English. Portugese or Spanish, yeah, it depends, but mostly on who’s saying it.
Hey, we have a government program in the US that pays people to learn geography. All you have to do is hold guns on world heritage sites (a friend of mine once had to secure ziggurats)
What country? Here in the US cyclists rarely drive pickups, we’re more likely to drive a subcompact hatchback or SUV and either throw it in the back or get a rack
? Naw man, half of them have those toyota pickups with that endgate blanket with the big white star to keep the front assembly from scratching the paint.
So as a farmer here in Canada, it depends where you live and what you farm. We use a lot of trailers, but they are all pulled by truck. The most common hookup methods for large trailers are gooseneck or 5th wheel, both of which require a truck as the connection point is right above the rear axle to improve towing capacity and handling.
My farm’s heavy truck is a 1-ton flatbed with tilt deck and gooseneck hitch as well as a pintle hitch. This truck allows me to pull livestock trailers, hay wagons and farm equipment, and haul pallets, tanks and bagged goods, a very versatile truck.
It also drinks fuel like you wouldn’t believe, so if I’m not hauling I drive an efficient diesel car when I go to the city (~200km)
Yeah, I usually see farmers use a 4WD with a trailer, or just their tractors. Trucks aren’t really a thing here, just the occasional douchebag who has imported one from the US.
For uses like construction and other blue collar work people use vans. Lots of storage space, and it’s enclosed so protected against the elements and from theft.
They’re great for hauling medium amounts of heavy shit and for hitching. So if you’re building a whole house it may not be perfect, but you probably can put your tools in the bed and use a trailer for lumber. But if you’re a carpenter or a mason you can throw a fair amount of wood or stone or brick in the bed and it wont have an issue
But that’s still impractical, you can only put your tools in there temporarily, but you can’t leave them unattended in an open truck bed or they would get stolen. Over here carpenters, masons, electricians and people in similar occupations usually use vans. Often they have shelves and other storage solutions in their van for their tools. Here are some examples (text is in Dutch but the photos are self explanatory).
You can still use a trailer with a van, and they often have roof-racks for things like long pieces of lumber, a ladder, etc. In comparison a truck just seems way less practical than a van.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I know farmers use open bed trucks for stuff like dirt and manure. The bed is a plus there as you can use a tarp to keep it in in transport then wash it out after. So yeah we wind up with farmers having trucks, some trades like masons use either, and tradesfolks like plumbers and electricians where they have a lot of tools and equipment that needs to be kept organized go with vans. It’s just that we have a metric fuck ton of arable land and as such a lot of farmers (though often it’s a capital intensive hobby) anywhere remotely rural. This results in pickup trucks being the iconic vehicle of the rural American and part of their identity even if they’re an accountant.
They don’t make many vans that can tow a 24,000 lb gvw gooseneck trailer filled to capacity with lumber (Centurion did, once upon a time) there’s bumper hitch lumber trailers that my half ton cannot tow empty, bottoms out the suspension just attempting to hook on. So you have a locking toolbox on front of bed or integated into a flatdeck. Trailer stays on site or is unloaded and leaves, truck brings the incidentals out as needed with the crew. Look, i don’t know why Europeans like to pretend theyve never heard of a toolbox. Scale of the roads and trailer here is just different, and masons, electricians and plumbers do use vans. Carpenters usually not.
modern trucks for sure, they’re - at least in the US from personal experience - frequently FAR oversized for their actual use needs.
I had an s-10 second hand in the 90s and it was crazy gas efficient and handy as a hammer. not a highway cruiser or a gigantic hauler, but it handled lumber and sod and shingles just fine. for some reason, they literally don’t make a truck that size anymore. same with the Kei truck form factor - it’s just gone, the only I see here in the US are old, pre-2010 stock.
Oh no! Does this mean I’ll need to develop an actual personality with my own likes and dislikes without following what I think will make me look manly?
Typically lifted trucks that are supposed to “look cool” like they’re capable of offroading, but would get stuck the moment they actually went off road.
Yep, at least in Canada “pavement” is either a sealed asphalt road surface, or the walking path in a garden or public park. Never the footpath on the side of a road, that’s a sidewalk or footpath.
A more common term for them here is “brodozer”. A portmanteau of “bro” and “bulldozer”.
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