- Few tradespeople are moving large loads of loose material or goods around e.g. debris or lawnmowers. If you do move dirt or lawnmowers around regularly, you're not buying a consumer Ford F150 for the purpose, you're going to buy something like an F250 with what's called a "work body" or "landscape body" (hilariously, strongly implying an off-the-shelf F250 is not equipped for work): https://cmtruckbeds.com/truck-beds/lb-landscape-body/
- A fully enclosed van means less risk of casual stealing, and less concern for tying down every little thing during transport
- Vans are generally a bit narrower than the big trucks so you can squeeze them into the strange city job sites much easier.
- They don't have to worry about protecting their cargo from the elements
- If you get the right van, you can stand up inside that van
- A van is going to have a pretty low floor that you can generally step into and out of. A large pickup you may need to literally climb into. A tradesperson is going to have to do that like 10+ times a day
It always seems like the foreman or project manager is the one you see driving the pickup truck, all the other working stiffs choose vans though.
There are trucks in Greece, just not that many twin cabs, mostly you will see them outside the city in the country.
Construction workers use mostly vans, and flatbed versions of vans (Like the ford transit) also called cab-over pick-up trucks. There are lots of small light cab-over trucks in the islands by Piaggio and Daihatsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck#/media/File:PiaggioTruck... which are pretty hand and often provide a pretty big flatbed for stuff. There are some construction workers like electricians, plumbers etc that love to use panel vans or their passenger versions using folded seats like the Fiat Doblo (Similar to the Ram Promaster City).
We are actually thinking of buying a mild-hybrid version of the passenger version of a panel-van to cover our family needs.
Seems like these weigh 1.8-2.0 tons
Truck rentals,
At-home delivery of building materials and hardware,
Actual trucks with drivers licensed for trucking,
Using a car with fold-down back seatsI chuckle at the weird and ridiculous things people do with their trucks. The lift kits, and the widening, and the heee-yuge tires. I cannot imagine what kind of mileage they make.
I couldn't own a basic car, let alone an RV, when I was living in Stockholm. I was trying to figure out if I could buy a large enough trailer for my bicycle to transport my inflatible boat somewhere (and there are basically no public boat launches!), I couldn't dream of RV, it seems those things are only for very wealthy people in Europe.
Now I own a normal 18 foot boat with a trailer and an RV camper even though I work in the same field. My life quality significantly improved since I moved to the U.S and I will never look back.