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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

IME it is often the female pushing for the bigger vehicle. My ex-wife kept pushing to upgrade our Subaru Outback to something bigger and we only had 2 dogs and no kids in the suburbs. Similarly, my wife hated my Chevy Bolt because of its size. I think folks stereotype big vehicle purchasers as males looking to compensate for feelings of inferiority, but from what I've seen(beyond just the examples given) is that this isn't really true. I'm sure it sounds good to folks looking to denigrate people with vehicles that are deemed excessive but is trite and silly.

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In my experience, people in huge vehicles are either bad drivers or drivers who lack confidence (or both).

I'm pretty sure females in general have less confidence than males. At least in my family.

We seem to be conflating different vehicles/demos in these comments. SUVs and pickups.

Large SUVs for sure are appealing to women.

The negative stereotypes of male compensation etc though are associated with large pickup trucks not SUVs no?

When we think “large SUV” we think soccer mom.

When we think “large Pickup” we think male ego compensation/etc.

I'm saying the same thing about both SUVs and pickups. Many times it's the women who want the bigger vehicle.

I don't think it's just about superiority or safety in the event of a crash. I almost always buy Coupes for my personal vehicles, but was hired to drive an F150 pickup truck to transport materials throughout the city. It had two advantages. One was being able to see what's behind me and estimate with high accuracy the distance from me things were, but that's less relevant. The other major advantage was that my head was higher than almost everyone else on the road, allowing me a much better 360 view of what's around me. However, I was also obstructing the view of every other driver, which is why only a complete douchebag gets one for a personal vehicle.

Yep. I like smaller cars, but when I moved out of the bay area I rented a big truck that sat high and had excellent visibility. I loved it. I wouldn't buy a truck based on that, but I see why people do.

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