Vans and minivans do everything trucks and SUVs do, and they do it better. Every time. No exception. SUVs and crossovers are just worse minivans for people who think they’re too cool to drive a minivan.
And those outside of North America largely need not apply. I wish we could just have a robust public transit system here, but apparently, public transit is antithetical to muh freedum or something. Or so they tell me.
And that’s not even getting into the point the post makes, which is that these monstrosities are getting bigger and more dangerous to pedestrians, yet our governments do nothing to stop it.
I would love to buy a kei car but the USA won’t import them. I want a Nissan Sakura - an EV that costs $15,000 new. Nope. The USA has all these rules in place to prevent competition. They say it’s about fuel efficiency or safety, but many foreign cars are more fuel efficient than USA cars, and this is an EV - so it’s vastly more fuel efficient! As for safety, we allow motorcycles, golf carts, and farm tractors on our roads but not kei cars?
It’s not about fuel efficiency or safety. It’s about protectionism. USA auto manufacturers have rigged our market to ensure we have to pay $30,000 or more to buy a new car. They don’t want $10,000 kei cars being sold here because they know they can’t compete.
They’re legal in colorado but with a lot of protectionist add-ons, like the newest model you can import is 25 years old, and you can’t get on the highway with one.
They’re legal in Texas now. I think in November they’ll be 100% legal and soon be able to buy them from a dealer. Since last year you could import them.
The argument is not that some people need trucks.
It is that huge trucks and suvs shouldn’t be the way they are nowadays. They can tow just as much if the hood is redesigned so it has better visibility than an M1 tank, because it’s currently worse. They’re stupid and oversized in the wrong ways.
If you need a real truck, you probably should get a flat front Isuzu FTR or something more functional than a sidewalk princess designed to kill pedestrians.
They changed the rules in my country. You can buy a truck but I’ll be taxed like a personal car instead of light cargo, unless you have a business and it’s a company car. That seriously curbed the eagerness to buy one.
Honestly I don’t mind trucks or SUVs specifically but vehicles are getting way too big on average, I mean the F150 is North America’s best selling vehicle (*edit: I have since learned as of 2024 that spot actually belongs to the RAV4) since forever. It’s a problem of misaligned incentives.
There’s an exception carved out for large vehicles in the EPA guidelines that hold them to less stringent emissions standards which incentivizes building larger vehicles 1
Large cars are also incentivized by our crash safety rating system which only takes into account the mortality rate of those inside the car as apposed to average related fatalities. This means it will prioritize safety of those in the vehicle, which has led to our average fatalities increasing. 2
As an unintended side effect this also damages roads much faster because vehicle weight per axle determines the magnitude of the damage a vehicle does to the road. 3 anecdotally this makes me concerned for the additional weight that electric cars add.
Also as vehicles increase in weight the amount of microplastics put into the air as a by product of tire wear increase. 4
As cars increase in size (and therefore weight) the downsides are exponential.
Interesting note: the reason so many vehicles are black, white or silver/gray is that dealers have found those are the colors customers looking for other colors will settle for if they get a good deal, so dealers stock a lot more of those 3 colors.
Vans and minivans do everything trucks and SUVs do,
And move big things. I have a minivan. But I destroyed my suspension using it to rent yard equipment. I couldn’t rent many because they wouldn’t fit. There’s also the whole moving a muddy bush hog into my carpeted minivan that is a huge hassle.
I can’t find any vehicle big enough to move my muddy bush hog 😏
Can’t get a load of rock dumped in a minivan, can’t use a forklift to put a pallet in it, no using lifts either. Plenty of stuff vans can’t do.
I think you’re right, and the original post is wrong to say that vans do it better every time, no exception.
However, I think that a van would be a more practical and better vehicle for a vast majority of people who are driving trucks. It’s just that people don’t care if things are practical, they want things that they think are cool.
Probably not in a minivan, but I’ve personally loaded pallets into cargo vans with a forklift
Lol land of the free
I just got back from Europe and I’m so fucking sick of how stupid North America is when it comes to transports. I just want to break all those stupidly big trucks and cars that all over my city. Seriously fuck you, driving a fucking tank in the middle of 1.5 millions shouldn’t be a right just because some idiots want to do it.
I’m an American in the rural South East. I can count on one hand the amount of people I’ve seen, met, or are my in laws who NEED a truck. I do not have enough body parts to count the amount of trucks that are used by compensating good ol’ boys and girls. The amount of shitty drivers in SUVs who have the mindset of “if I’m in an accident I’ll be ok, so I don’t have to worry about driving like there are other people on the road” is down right astounding.
Most days I don’t need a truck. Most days I don’t want a truck.
But that’s what I’ve got and I can’t exactly just buy a new vehicle, or simply change jobs to one I can cycle to.
I’m a minority though, for most people it’s compensation for insecurity or attempted status symbol. Around here we call them “pavement princesses” because they never touch dirt and likely couldn’t navigate a back yard with its current driver.
And I’m not trying to imply that there is no reason to need a truck or no reason to need an SUV. There are jobs that require it, there are things that you can do or be employed by that would require needing extra towing capacity, that would require needing extra abilities to hold heavier weights. Those things do exist. But again I can count on one hand the amount of people I know or have met or am related to now who NEED those things. I’ve actually had to watch as several of my in-laws who worked for companies that they claimed they couldn’t do their job unless they had a lifted jacked up truck which had an extreme extended cab and bed be transferred to electric vans and it did not impact their job. They were still able to get everywhere they needed to go with all of the things that they had in tow and the mover vans worked just fine. And I’ve actually known several people who got fired from those jobs because the electric vans had tattler programs and it told them that they were driving in dangerous manners putting both the company’s assets at risk and risking liability.
And I’m not trying to imply that there is no reason to need a truck or no reason to need an SUV.
I didn’t mean to imply that’s what you were saying.
There are exceptions, but yeah 99% of trucks and SUVs on the road simply don’t need to be there.
I’d love electric van, honestly. Most of the stuff I use my truck for doesn’t need the open space up top or the ability to drop a load from above/the side, and the few times I have needed that I could have spent an hour hand loading things. Plus I’d prefer the extra security of having an enclosed cargo space. Vans are better than trucks in all but a small set of circumstances
Yep, only things my truck has been specifically good for have been dump runs to one particular facility (big pit with low wall) and hauling loads of gravel/soil. A van or a trailer could accomplish much the same, but the truck was cheap and I don’t have anywhere to keep a trailer so it’s a good second vehicle.
Sorry I know that in text it can seem like I’m responding directly to you but I was more meaning in the broad sense. That I understand that there are situations where you do need a pickup truck or a heavy duty truck, things of that nature.
Vans and minivans do everything trucks and SUVs do, and they do it better.
Except tow things.
I’ll show you how many people I see driving absolutely massive trucks (with 6" spacers on the wheels that are abysmal for the drivetrain and look absolutely hideous) that are towing more than 1 single fat ass american:
My in-laws have a van that can out-pull my pickup. Partly due to my trucks age and how heavily it has been used over the years, but their van isn’t exactly a pushover.
And they have their own pickup that is only a few years old and it can’t tow their camper very well. They use their van whenever they can.
And good luck carrying something long or tall.
Lots of people need a truck often enough that it makes more sense to own one than to buy 2 cars, even if most of the time it’s just a passenger car.
My parents have a plug-in hybrid and an F150 as their 2 cars because most of the time, the hybrid is great but frequently they need to move plywood or rent a trencher.
I drive an NV200 (mini cargo van) because I frequently need to haul scuba gear and tools, but rarely anything that won’t fit in the cargo area of the van.
It’s almost like different vehicles we’ve different roles.
You can rent a fucking truck if you need something long or tall. The only people who need trucks are people who are doing that kinda stuff on the regular. I just got to the hospital and this huge truck pulls up to the handicapped area and two elderly people got out, very carefully since they needed to climb down. They do NOT need a truck.
edit: Sorry, I thought this was /c/fuckcars
So getting something that takes 20 minutes is now an all day ordeal? Do you think people just have limitless free time?
The rest of the time you’re using your truck for menial tasks you’re spending much more money on vehicle maintenance, not to mention the overall cost of a truck over a commuter vehicle. And people aren’t make of limitless money, they’re just going into debt to get these bigger vehicles.
Spend a little time to save a lot of money.
My time is worth $50 an hour, yeah no hahaha. People have different circumstances. I would make more by having g the truck sit most of the time then to waste a whole day doing a 30 minute task.
Think higher of your own worth and time.
Make it way harder to haul stuff. Gotta hand load instead of letting the loader load your load.
Lol that’s silly. Even motorcycles can tow things. Sedans can tow things. RV’s, vans, station wagons.
But they can’t do it better than trucks can. Can a motorcycle tow a 27’ travel trailer filled with all the things you need to live for an extended amount of time?
Why do they need to do it “better”, and how are we defining “better”?
Those vehicles are all much better at not running over pedestrians. They get better fuel mileage when not towing things, which is the vast majority of the time. They fit into parking spots better. We could go on and on arguing the pros and cons of these classes of vehicles and how good or bad they are at different things. And then we can dive further into specific models and how electric trucks might get better mileage or how kei trucks are much closer to vans than modern American trucks. Or even how small pickup trucks used to exist in America and we’re mostly fine. Or we could look at things like how all the biggest logistics companies in the world have put billions of dollars into developing their own vehicles and none of them have landed on pickup trucks.
Honestly I don’t really care how good a vehicle is at towing or hauling stuff. If it cannot do so without losing a ridiculous risk to pedestrians and property it shouldn’t exist. There are tons of products that have been banned despite being very effective at what they were designed to do because they also happened to be good at killing people.
My friend was killed by a bus while riding her bike. Should we ban public transit?
I think you need to go back to middle school science to understand the importance of sample size. With a sample size of 1, it is not possible to isolate variables and determine a correlation, let alone causality. Was the driver under the influence of any substances? Was this on a section of road or intersection that was poorly designed or maintained? Were any parts of the bus or bike poorly designed or malfunctioning? And while I hate to blame victims, if the goal is to understand what happened and prevent future incidents, we need to understand the victim’s behavior and how that may have contributed as well. What a case study, particularly an individual death or injury CAN tell us is that we need to further study the situation to learn how it happened and how to prevent or mitigate it in the future.
And of course, I mentioned several other personal vehicles as options. Over 40k people die each year in the US alone from all motor vehicle collisions- we should also be looking at legislation to sedans, vans, busses, motorcycles, roads, and everything else safer. However, compared to busses personal vehicles are WAY more dangerous. To the point where it’s kind of silly to even display this data in a bar chart.
Here is a study looking at a larger sample size. Trucks and SUV’s are more likely to strike pedestrians and more likely to be fatal.
Or are you suggesting we should do nothing? Just accept the fact that manufacturers are allowed to design and market death traps, and individuals are allowed to rampage through the streets as they please? Maybe we should remove seatbelt requirements too while we are at it?
Don’t get me wrong. The bedonked trucks rolling coal and driving like assholes should be penalized and car manufacturers should be limited in how big they keep making these things. But you’re not going to get rid of trucks. Especially not in America. Good luck with the crusade though.
No, but and old small Volvo hatchback can. What kind of roads do you have over there?
Proof to support your claim? This seems like an outright lie to me.
The distances are a problem in the US for good public transport.
So are: Lawyers, NIMBYs, classism, racism, anti-tax, automotive lobbyists, peer pressure, and even environmentalists.
NIMBY is an unfortunate term that lazily discounts completely valid arguments against bad things that happen to be in someone’s “backyard” - as if people being personally affected changes the facts of the situation.
“Bad things”
Like public transportation? Which is what we’re discussing. Not sewage treatment plants.
I’m not arguing whatever issue is being argued here, in fact I didn’t even know what it was. I’m talking about the term NIMBY and saying exactly (and only) what I said.
Oh, so you’re ignoring the entire conversation to make an ignorant quip obviously based on the fact you don’t know what NIMBYs are… and then you carry on to admit you don’t know what a NIMBY is…
Damn, ignorance must be your friend if you chum up with it so readily.
Let me clue you in: NIMBYs complain about ANY change that they do not personally want. As the person you conveniently ignored already pointed out, NIMBYs say no to things that are good for society, NOT for valid reasons, but because they’re selfish pricks who don’t care about making society better.
We’re pop up headlights a danger? I always wondered why they went away as a style choice
Dangerous, overcomplicated, prone to failure and expensive. The auto industry didn’t fight to save them because customers didn’t really seem to care that much about them.
That makes a ton of sense, huh, today I learned
Its all capitalism. In germany, people also buy larger and larger suvs and just a couple minutes ago i saw a petition for the EU to limit car soze growth. Its infinitely braindead. You dont need a car the size of a small house. Streets are not your property. I would limit individual cars to the smallest size possible. Driving a car isnt just bad for the environment, it is also a logistical nightmare. Therefore, the benefit of the many trumps the benefit of the few.
Are crossovers that bad? They seem mostly to be sedans with better storage and a little worse gas mileage. The latter of which minivans definitely dont win on.
That just sounds like a worse station wagon. Which, being the owner of a Subaru Outback station wagon, I can confirm.
Worse station wagon is exactly what a crossover is
Wouldn’t a station wagon have even worse gas mileage?
I’m curious how many folks in the US basically go broke from truck payments and interest rates. I do pretty well working in tech and I still gasp whenever I look at truck prices here. They’re a massive fucking ripoff—even small trucks like the Ranger and Tacoma. I probably walk past folks on the daily that are paying 4-digits every month for a stupid status symbol, while they get paid like shit.
Does pop-up headlights mean the old kind that mechanically raise when turned on? I was fully unaware of safety concerns and govt regs against them and just assumed they were too costly and overly complex for manufacturers to keep doing. And I still see them in some sporty models.
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