Well, see, the secret is you probably don't really need that truck bed in the first place, so if I was to guess, I'd say that's why there's a bit of resistance to that idea. The working hypothesis here is that if you bought a sensible car that makes sense as a car... and a separate van to work, then you'd never buy a van. Which is what most people do here, honestly. You don't so much buy a van as you know a guy who does own a van and will let you use it for the thirty minutes that you actually need it once or twice a year in exchange for a beer later.
Which is probably how you end up with fewer cars per capita than the US and still have work vehicles separate from whatever you use to take the kids to school or go get groceries.
Also, you send the kids to school in a bus and walk to the shop. That also helps, I bet.
So why are we having this conversation, then? Because that's great for you, but as a "optimal use case" as opposed to the "maximal use case", I'd say "seats" tends to rank pretty high the list of car features. For... you know, most people.
Yeah, okay, but sue the goverment to shit, then. Or whoever runs the medical institution in question not providing adequate service. The people responsible not having the resources or the political will doesn't remove the rights of a patient. If I have a mentally ill relative that needs to be committed and they end up in jail for weeks I'd be pissed and extremely litigious even before they end up mysteriously dead.
And also, does "pending evaluation" suspend habeas corpus if there is no evaluation in place to deem them a risk? WTF? What's to keep a hostile actor from maliciously putting a person in this track instead of properly charging them if they're just trying to dump them in a hole for two weeks? How does that hold to any constitutional scrutiny in the US? Surely you're either deemed incompetent and you are involuntarily committed until you're not... or you have habeas corpus. The hell is this limbo in between?
I know even here there is a lot of grey areas in this subject and some shaky legal foundations to safety measures for people who can't look after themselves, but... yeah, this seems messed up. More messed up than the baseline level of messed up around this thing.
That's all fair enough. And let me just include the first part about North America in there and not also pick the fight about Canada being mostly in that same cultural bundle because this thread is already trolly and angry enough.
I think if this thread wasn't such a hassle it'd be interesting to pick some of that apart, because I do think the marketing is culturally bound, not arbitrary (if it was arbitrary it would have worked in the places where it didn't). I do think it's obviously hard to argue about the identitarian bit you mention, though, because... well, look around this thread.
Wait, if they are sending patients to jail and treating them as criminal defendants what's up with habeas corpus in that scenario? And if they're not criminal defendants and are committed for mental health treatment why are they in jail? I mean, even before 15 deaths, that probably shouldn't be how that goes.
Oh, you have no idea the things I can be smug about. I am very good at it. Lots of practice.
Not being smug about my own ignorance, though (although I can and I have). I'm being smug about the insane immediate ragefest you get at the insinuation that pickups may not be a great solution for a daily driver. That's a way lower level of smug. Entry level smug right there. Was doing it before you even got to this conversation and it was eeeeasy.
Oh, yeah, this conversation is super irrelevant. There is literally zero reason to have this conversation beyond the morbid fascination of seeing weirdos come out of the woodwork to be super offended that you said mean things about open beds. It's like flipping over a rock to see the bugs.
I mean, let's be honest, why else would anybody have an intricate, incensed conversation about whether the back of a van is covered with a bit of sheet metal or going commando? It's absolutely bonkers. Think about it. Think about it hard for a second.
Oh, I'm condescending HARD here. The mere fact that this conversation is ongoing is extremely condescending. It's extremely boring, seeing how I've had it multiple times already, so the only thing keeping me here at all is the opportunity to condescend, frankly.
FWIW, and to engage honestly with data, because data requires honesty, we're just citing different sources. I think the one I pulled, which was dated September 2023 and had the Hilux and F150 at 6 and 9, respectively. I suspect it was a "year so far" list, given the date, but it doesn't cite a primary source, so I couldn't guarantee it.
Anyway, speaking of arrogance and condescension, I live in a rural area and have ridden on the back of Citroen vans to school more than once (don't do that, it's dangerous and illegal). So... average mango seller where? Because the anwer is yes. I've also gone around on the back of a tractor a few times.
I swear to you, if I ever have any kind of emotion towards "anything that has an open bed" beyond mild bemusement I will quit the Internet, abandon the concept of self-propelled vehicles and ride a donkey to a mountain monastery to rethink my life.
I just didn't know you could get people on the Internet to froth at the mouth by implying that pickup trucks aren't perhaps the most efficient mode of transportation until a couple of weeks ago. Now that I do know it feels irresponsible not to use this power. Especially when somebody brings up how culturally strange some purchasing choices are in the US.
Wait, in 2020? Why not look up 22 or 23? I mean, it's not like anything weird would have impacted the market in 2020, huh? And hey, it doesn't even look that bad for your case, the Hilux and the F150 both break the top 10 in the most recent source I could find, if narrowly. The best seller I see is a SUV, and man, trust me, I don't share your defensiveness here, you are super allowed to mock those.
Now, I don't speak for the whole world, but I sure speak for myself. Since I was checking, in my location small vans and pickups all together account for less than 10% of the national market as per the most recent data (they don't even bother separating those segments, apparently). Large commercial vans and small commercial trucks are actually as big of a segment.
So yeah, anecdotally and statistically, it's exceedingly rare to see a pickup truck here. Turns out you also don't speak for the rest of the world. Because, you know, nobody does. That tends to happen with hundreds of countries and billions of people.
I didn't? Like I explicitly didn't. I explicitly say up there that I get it and even if I think it's not optimal you get to buy stuff you like that's not optimal because you think it's cool.
This only reinforces my point about the sheer, unbridled rage this subject triggers in a certain stripe of car people, and it's both hilarious and kinda terrifying.
I mean, public libraries and archives being a mandatory requirement for copyright enforcement and publishing records is a thing, and the Wayback Machine proves it's technologically feasible to approximate it for the Internet, so...
No, hey, I get it. You want a cool toy, not a boring practical solution. That's legitimate. I own many things that are not the optimal answer to a problem just because I like them.
The sheer rage at the insinuation that the option may not be optimal is fascinating, though. So uniquely American. Which is what this thread is about. "The maximal use case".
For the record, I had not heard of the "Honda Fit". I guess it's like a Japanese Fiat Punto. Also for the record, what both the Fiat Punto and the Honda Fit seem to have is a back seat. But hey, again, a cool toy, not an optimal solution. Maximal use case. It's a good observation.
I mean... it depends on what you mean, I guess? Even if I hadn't spent the pandemic lockdowns comfortably holed up in a small apartment, it's worth noting that big-ass houses typically have yards while small apartments do not.
I guess if you mean "having shops, bars and restaurants within walking distance" that can maybe work, but otherwise that doesn't seem to track.
IA is quickly becoming a massive, risky single point of failure that is one bad lawsuit away from causing a major problem.
I want to hope they have an exit strategy, but I'm thinking we need to start providing alternatives. A single backup is no backup at all, and all that.
Right, but in this scenario you end up with two vehicles: a light, economical car to drive and a dedicated work vehicle. The original point is that expensive, heavy vehicles as daily drivers can be less practical and economical than mutiple cheaper, dedicated vehicles.
For some reason, this makes Americans, and especially American car people VERY angry to hear, and it's bizarre.
Let me speedrun through this: I've never seen a pickup truck and I am in a rural place where people move stinky stuff all the time. Vans can be purchased with sealed off cabins, and with all doors open can be hosed down easily. It's fine. Nobody here has pickups. I haven't seen a pickup or known anybody to have one and everybody is fine. This is a strictly American thing and the US isn't the moon, there really isn't a unique need to use a truck bed for school runs.
You're doing the thing the man said: drive a tank to buy groceries in case you have to haul manure once a year.
Well, see, the secret is you probably don't really need that truck bed in the first place, so if I was to guess, I'd say that's why there's a bit of resistance to that idea. The working hypothesis here is that if you bought a sensible car that makes sense as a car... and a separate van to work, then you'd never buy a van. Which is what most people do here, honestly. You don't so much buy a van as you know a guy who does own a van and will let you use it for the thirty minutes that you actually need it once or twice a year in exchange for a beer later.
Which is probably how you end up with fewer cars per capita than the US and still have work vehicles separate from whatever you use to take the kids to school or go get groceries.
Also, you send the kids to school in a bus and walk to the shop. That also helps, I bet.