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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Let me guess, you don’t live next to farmers or a lot of snow.

Pickups are actually one of the worst vehicles imaginable in the snow. You have to throw a lot of weight in the rear to get traction, the wheelbase is long so that spinning out of control is far more likely and terrifying, trucks are super high off the ground so roll over risk is high (ESPECIALLY with lifted trucks) and worst of all extremely heavy vehicles like big trucks have a horrendous stopping distance in the snow which is by far and away the most important thing in the snow.

If you want a vehicle that will handle moderately deep snow the best a subaru station wagon is probably the ideal shape, or at low speeds a shorter jeep wrangler if you are actually going off road.

Unless you want to toss a snow plow on the front and actually deal with it.

That’s the thing even in urban areas you will see pickup trucks cleaning parking lots etc.

Even where I grew up in northern maine, where everyone had two trucks, 10 feet of snow per winter was reliably expected, and everyone runs a farm, very few people would plow their own driveway.

For personal driveways, people had cheap push snow blowers. For the roads, we had big plow trucks and literal construction equipment was used for large roads and parking lots.

Very few people plow, because plowing is harder than snow blowing, more damaging to your lawn and driveway than snowblowing, and just all around less effective. And the few people who do actively plow their own driveway will either start a business to do other people's driveways (a common way for 16 year olds to make money in the winter) or just straight up plow neighbors driveway for free or payment.

Even in this literal heaven for trucks, full of farmers, outdoor activities, mud, and construction, 8 out of 10 trucks were driveway queens.

Interesting, where I grew up both snow and trucks where significantly less common, but that meant infrastructure to deal with it was also more adhock.

Back then I would say around 1/3 to 1/4th of households in the area with large trucks had a snow plow, but I only knew one guy with a snowblower. Of course that also related to how long it took the state to deal with back roads after even a minor snow event.

Yah but even then, I suspect a 4x4 suv would be better suited than a pickup for that... its just people use absolute incredible shit tier beater trucks for plowing similar to how people use shit tier cars to deliver pizzas. I dont think its because a beater truck is better than say a 4x4 SUV, it just is (was?) easier to find a beater truck.

If somebody is using a nice truck to snow plow they are pissing away money. Ice, constant torquing stress on the frame, hitting shit hidden in the snow, salt on main roads everywhere (depending on place) etc... it is fastest way to reduce the value of a vehicle next to driving it into a brickwall or driving it off a bridge into the ocean.

I live next to a few people who keep their $80,000 truck immaculate, and will never touch an unpaved field with it. The best trucks for driving in snow and mud are the trucks that actual farm hands drive, and are usually far less decked out, have mismatched paint schemes, and are covered in scratches and dirt. Completely their choice to make that purchase, obviously, but I’ve seen worse vehicle choices.

However when my wife walks past one and the hood is over her head, knowing that this is possible because it’s exempt from regulation as a ”farm vehicle” seems like a corruption of government regulation.

I don’t think we need to make people prove how they will be using a vehicle, so maybe we should just require different license classes based on vehicle’s current weight and/or height? Driving a 7,000 lb truck that is 6.5’ tall is not the same as driving a passenger car.

A basic driving license will allow you to drive a 26,000lb GVWR box truck with an actual length of 34 feet. Is this the right call? It doesn't seem to be a problem, because very few people are buying such large trucks for daily drivers.

The talk about "farm vehicle" is a red herring in this whole thread. Actual farm plates are rare. The significant distinction is cosplayer vs contractor, which happens to be independent of commercial plates.

The right answer is probably charging yearly registration (/road use) fees based on GVWR. This is already common for trailers. There should be a part that scales as the road wear from weight does. I think it's something like the third or fourth power?

What's really scary are the RV exemptions in the majority of US states[0]. As that list notes in 34 states you can drive ANYTHING regardless of size or weight as long as it's classified as a "recreational vehicle".

[0] - https://www.campanda.com/magazine/rv-special-drivers-license...

I live in a rural area where pickup trucks are used for farm tasks, hunting (deer season, coyote season is every day), construction, towing, etc at a much higher rate than you probably see across the US in average.

Among the community of people that use their trucks for "real work" (whatever their definition of that may be) an immaculately kept truck like the one you're describing would be referred to as a "pavement princess".

Ok, but most trucks sold today are indeed pavement princesses. For every one you see in the country doing work, there's 5 others being parked on tenth/quarter-acre lots in the cities/suburbs.

I'd say it's not even close. As another commenter noted pavement princesses are probably > 90% of trucks sold today.

My guess is it’s closer to 25%, once you consider people who use a snow plow, haul a boat/camper/trailer etc. Now sure many of these could be replaced with smaller trucks without extended cabs etc, but the choice of pickup truck was still useful.

Pickup trucks are horrendous for snowy conditions. You literally have to put extra material in them to make them manageable.

The farmers in my family do have pickup trucks. 40 year old ones with standard cabs and no frills.

There is virtually no good function for a modern leather appointed king cab other than signaling your group. Which is fine! Half of car ownership is that but do t pretend that even half of trucks are used for some truck like usage. Heck the half that are is for hauling boats or rvs once or twice a summer.

I don’t think that’s quite accurate. I live in an area where even people with tiny houses have a boat, and they don’t bring it out just once or twice in a summer. And once you need that pickup truck instead of a Prius, the King cab and leather is just a luxury upgrade like anything else. I see plenty of contractors, etc., around here with big shiny pickup trucks.

Or you know, 4WD

Let me guess, you've never heard of the term "Pavement princess".

Yes, farmers use pickup trucks, and they're great for that purpose. Nobody is arguing or disagreeing with you on that point.

Nobody is arguing against the purchasing of pickup trucks in the general sense. We're arguing against the purchase of a pickup truck as a daily driver. Something that will be used to commute and buy groceries.

Seriously, snow? You don't need a pickup for snow!

Moving snow, not driving on it.

Here in the frozen hellscape of maine, nearly all snow mangement is done by dedicated equipment. They use skidsteers, dump trucks, front end loaders with giant buckets or snow blowers, and what few trucks they do have don't plow, they spread dirt or salt, which the dump trucks also can do so they are only used to dirt/salt small parking lots.

Individuals buy push snow blowers or snow blower attachments to their lawn tractors.

Occasionally a business will contract someone with a plow on a truck but that's not common because the contractors who actually deal with this regularly have dedicated equipment that's better than a plow on a truck and using a shitty plow on a standard truck is actually not easy.

Even the parking lot in my private apartment complex is cleaned after a snow storm by a company with multiple front end loaders and skidsteers.

Dude, I live in Austria. We know what snow is and how to move it.

This is what you build for that purpose:

https://img.archiexpo.de/images_ae/photo-mg/67143-15337174.w...

https://d3v9db8ug40up8.cloudfront.net/styles/large/s3/2020-0... This is colloquially called Unimog (successor, kind of), a general purpose utility vehicle with awesome drivetrain, huge tires, great weight distribution, not too heavy, serves winter and summer in several roles.

https://www.ecotech.at/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Ecotech-Sc...

The best-selling car brand in Norway is Tesla. Pickups are not good in snow, at all, and that you think so puts you in "that crowd" for sure.

Yet, many people also have pickup trucks in Norway specifically to deal with moving snow which is what I was referring to. You don’t need a high percentage of big trucks to do this, but it is utility you get from a truck you don’t get from a model 3.

Sure, regular sedans are no use for plowing private roads or parking lots. (Anything municipal gets plowed with larger trucks.)

As you say, you don't need very many pickups for that. The fraction of American pickups that are used for snow plowing is pretty much irrelevant to this conversation.

Given the % of urban vs rural population of the US, yes (as expected)

Doesn't justify the urbanites buying SUVs though

Don’t forget that the Census Bureau counts every town of 2,500 in the middle of farm country as an “urban area.” I’m in an “urban area” and I can drive to horse farms in 5 minutes.

Urban Areas include both Urbanized Areas >50K and Urban Clusters 2.5K-50K

US is 68% Urbanized, 21% Rural, and only 10% Urban Cluster.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...

And of course those horse farms only demand a big truck if you are doing big work on the horse farm. If all you need is AWD you don't need a big truck.

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