But most don’t need a stupid 9-Seater or Ford F-150/450 for their daily commute.
(Yes I know there are some use cases where these are practically, but let’s be honest, most people never use that capability or just a few times in the lifetime of the vehicle
I’ve been in favor of requiring licenses for anything past a light truck (figure older ford rangers as a light truck), so that only people with demonstrable needs for said vehicles would pursue them, otherwise they would need to go through the trouble for nothing. Same would go for large SUVs, as they’re often built on the same platforms anyway.
I just drive a Corolla and own an older Crown Victoria as a backup car for my family/“nice car”. There’s been times where owning a truck would certainly have been useful, but I just rented something from uhaul.
And even for people who use their cars twice a day to go to work, their car spends 95% of their lives parked, individual cars are such a waste. I hope self-driving actually happens one day so the % of use of cars can drastically increase, and their number drastically decrease.
It works if you have a good infrastructure for public transportation. I live quite far away from the nearest public transportation and if I wanted to use apps like Uber, my local equivalent has eliminated penalties for drivers accepting and then rejecting an order if it doesn’t pay enough so I’ve given up trying to use apps like Uber.
So the only option is to get a car or just be stuck unable to do anything.
It’s funny, I was just at the car dealership yesterday getting my car repaired and I talked to a guy on the showroom floor who was buying a new vehicle. The dealer had the new Nissan electric car on display that I was checking out, and the guy said " Don’t buy that it’s electric! "
I asked him why, because I think electric cars are great. He was a bigger man, about 5’10 tall and 350 lb. He said that he can’t fit in anything smaller than a full size pickup truck because they are “too small for me.”. Which of course is silly, because I’ve seen plenty of fat people fit in smaller cars. In fact, I had a friend who weighed almost as much as he did who was able to fit into my 1986 Honda Civic hatchback.
So there you go ladies and gentlemen, Americans believe they’re too fat to fit in anything but a gigantic pickup truck with a 7,000 lb GVWR.
The average trip length in America is something like 2 mi in distance. That’s a distance that you could walk, and you can bike that in less than 5 minutes. So Americans really can meet a lot of their daily travel needs to the store and short errands by means other than a car.
The biggest problem in America is twofold: infrastructure and behavioral patterns.
Going car free isn’t an option for most Americans, unfortunately.
But most don’t need a stupid 9-Seater or Ford F-150/450 for their daily commute. (Yes I know there are some use cases where these are practically, but let’s be honest, most people never use that capability or just a few times in the lifetime of the vehicle
I agree.
I’ve been in favor of requiring licenses for anything past a light truck (figure older ford rangers as a light truck), so that only people with demonstrable needs for said vehicles would pursue them, otherwise they would need to go through the trouble for nothing. Same would go for large SUVs, as they’re often built on the same platforms anyway.
I just drive a Corolla and own an older Crown Victoria as a backup car for my family/“nice car”. There’s been times where owning a truck would certainly have been useful, but I just rented something from uhaul.
And even for people who use their cars twice a day to go to work, their car spends 95% of their lives parked, individual cars are such a waste. I hope self-driving actually happens one day so the % of use of cars can drastically increase, and their number drastically decrease.
It works if you have a good infrastructure for public transportation. I live quite far away from the nearest public transportation and if I wanted to use apps like Uber, my local equivalent has eliminated penalties for drivers accepting and then rejecting an order if it doesn’t pay enough so I’ve given up trying to use apps like Uber.
So the only option is to get a car or just be stuck unable to do anything.
It’s funny, I was just at the car dealership yesterday getting my car repaired and I talked to a guy on the showroom floor who was buying a new vehicle. The dealer had the new Nissan electric car on display that I was checking out, and the guy said " Don’t buy that it’s electric! "
I asked him why, because I think electric cars are great. He was a bigger man, about 5’10 tall and 350 lb. He said that he can’t fit in anything smaller than a full size pickup truck because they are “too small for me.”. Which of course is silly, because I’ve seen plenty of fat people fit in smaller cars. In fact, I had a friend who weighed almost as much as he did who was able to fit into my 1986 Honda Civic hatchback.
So there you go ladies and gentlemen, Americans believe they’re too fat to fit in anything but a gigantic pickup truck with a 7,000 lb GVWR.
The average trip length in America is something like 2 mi in distance. That’s a distance that you could walk, and you can bike that in less than 5 minutes. So Americans really can meet a lot of their daily travel needs to the store and short errands by means other than a car.
The biggest problem in America is twofold: infrastructure and behavioral patterns.