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Comment by kubectl_h | Hacker News Reader

> It is a known fact that the vast majority of truck owners rarely ever use the truck bed.

I'm not here to defend brodozers, but you cannot possibly prove this statement. That a _pickup truck_ isn't hauling the majority of the time it is on the road is not some new thing. But of course there are more pickup trucks on the road than ever, so if you argument is aggregate time of all pickup trucks not doing truck things is the highest its ever been is certainly true, but you'd probably have to go back to before the 80s for that number to actually be meaningfully different per truck.

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Not sure what you mean by "prove this statement" but answering questions like this is exactly why organizations do consumer research. To wit [1]:

> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

The hauling figure is useless without specifying what they mean.

Usually these “studies” redefine hauling to mean something specific like hauling loose dirt or something extremely heavy.

If you can read a quote claiming 2/3 of truck owners don’t “put something in the bed” more than once a year then and not realize that something is wrong with these statistics then you’re missing something.

The question is not whether they "put something in the bed" — it's whether they use the bed in such a way that the trunk or back seat of a smaller vehicle would be unsuitable.

The Telo appeals to me. I've resisted getting a truck because I like a smaller vehicle and don't want to have undue impact and because I've listened to arguments like this before.

But I was offroad last weekend. I move sheets of plywood a couple of times per year and either need to beg my wife to help or sit around waiting at Home Depot for the truck to be available. I have stuff to move for robotics comps that I'm always barely able to get there by cramming it in my car + begging a couple of parents to help out. Dealing with the bike rack is hard. Ordering things like Ikea furniture for delivery is expensive, latent, and not exactly low impact iself.

Yah, 90% of the time I need a car, but 10% of the time I need a little more and there's enough friction around making it work that I would pull the trigger on something like this.

On the other hand I don't think I could say "frequently" to any of those questions.

Two thoughts here:

1. An ideal society would be structured such that you wouldn't need to buy a truck you use as a car 90% of the time. But that society doesn't exist here, and you shouldn't feel guilty about living by incentives you didn't create. Maybe you do need a truck!

2. But we're not talking about people who compromise to make 10% of their trips more convenient; we're talking about people who never use their truck for truck things. A car would be better choice for them 100% of the time, yet they still drive a truck.

One of my points was re: #2:

I am not sure how I would answer on that survey. It really depends on fine details of how the questions were worded.

For sure towing would be "rarely". But "personal hauling"? I am not sure.

There’s a quote from some consulting firm that goes around claiming 2/3 of truck drivers don’t “put something in the bed” more than once a year.

It’s a laughable claim for anyone who thinks about it for more than a second.

The way they usually get to these numbers is by redefining what “hauling a load” means to be something extremely heavy or for loose fill materials. So if someone routinely hauls a couple mountain bikes in the bed of their truck or gets a few 2x4s from the lumber yard it wouldn’t count.

> So if someone routinely hauls a couple mountain bikes in the bed of their truck or gets a few 2x4s from the lumber yard it wouldn’t count.

Even if that’s the case, the truck owners doing this probably don’t need a full size truck. A 90s-era small truck or maybe even a kei truck would suffice, and yet more often than not the trucks in question are the likes of F-150s.

Agreed, unfortunately small trucks are increasingly harder and harder to find. A 90s truck also won’t have the amenities that a modern truck has.

I think if they are just hauling mountain bikes, they could get a small hitch installed and purchase a high-quality bike rack. A roof rack can carry 2x4s very well.

Or do what I do and drive an MPV, which are bloody excellent for getting my TT bike in with its excessively angled aero bars!

The company in question has been doing their survey for two decades. It’s a private data set, but has been reported on by multiple serious news outlets which will have their own data scientists looking over the data, e.g. Axios: https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history

You can also verify the data is coming from real drivers, by searching for “New Vehicle Experience Study” and seeing all the posts from users who receive the survey and think it’s some kind of scam.

> So if someone routinely hauls a couple mountain bikes in the bed of their truck or gets a few 2x4s from the lumber yard it wouldn’t count.

I don't know how long a 2x4 is, so I don't know about those. But in the summer holiday period (so now) you see a lot of these running around: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thule_(11834033554... Even on surprisingly small cars.

I dislike the whole "justify why you like X" thing. People can always find the flimsiest of reasons why they want to prohibit things they don't like and then demand others justify why they should get to keep what they have. Just simply liking something never seems enough for those fighters against joy.

I really don't like pick up trucks. I also think most of their practical uses can be achieved with other vehicles. But that shouldn't concern me. If the owner of the car gets joy out of it, then that should be enough. I don't have to like what others like, and they don't have to like what I like.

Respectfully, if you don’t know how long a 2x4 is, I think it would be very reasonable to look this up, as it will make you much better equipped to make this argument.

I generally agree with what you are saying, and frequently haul 2x4s without my truck - but the solution to that is a long flatbed trailer, not a Thule hitch attachment.

it does depend a lot on what you buy it for, but obviously 8' is a good benchmark.

But honestly... at 8' I'm not sure why you're bothering with anything (unless you're getting a lot of them), i usually just threw 8 footers in my Honda Fit and closed the hatch.

Ironically most pickup truck beds are shorter than 8' and most likely a 8' piece of lumber would have to lay diagonally sticking out over one of the edges.

Still good for occasional piece of furniture, lots of lumber, or plywood.

The shortest bed f150 you can buy is 5.5ft, with a 2ft tailgate, trivially hauling 8ft with just a few inches overhang with the tailgate down, and easily doing 10ft lumber.

Again, I think pickup trucks are idiotically oversized and dangerous to pedestrians, but arguing against them by repeating things that anyone that uses a pickup knows is nonsense is not helping win over any detractors.

To be clear, I am not arguing against pickup trucks. The reason I bring up the bed length is a personal pet peeve thing. I have some amount of OCD going on, and I will be damned if I will ever approve of a truck that can't fit a piece of lumber in its bed without leaving the tailgate open that can fit into a Ford Fiesta with the trunk closed.

I am fully aware of why and how people use pickup trucks and I have no beef with that on cultural grounds. But if I were to get one it would be a long bed truck and I would sacrifice the cab space if needed.

The Thule hitch attachment was responding to GP saying they throw their bikes in the bed of their truck.

>If the owner of the car gets joy out of it, then that should be enough.

For most things, yes, absolutely! However, considering the dangers of huge trucks it is very valid to have concerns about them. An exaggerated analogy: if the owner of a gun gets joy out of free firing it into the air that should be enough.

> So if someone routinely hauls a couple mountain bikes in the bed of their truck or gets a few 2x4s from the lumber yard it wouldn’t count.

If that's all you're doing, anything more than a Maverick is overkill. Bike racks and wood delivery are a thing. Shit you can fit a mountain bike in the back of a sedan. I see people doing this at trailheads all the time.

Those suburban moms don't need a Yukon to take their two kids to soccer practice either.

That's what hauling means to me, though.

A rack mount on a normal European-sized car is perfectly sufficient for a couple bicycles, I have one, and a trailer for my enduro motorcycle, or a fridge, or anything else I occasionally transport. Anything bigger and I'll rent an actual truck.

Exactly, because my car can do that. You can put your shopping in the flatbed but you wouldn’t claim you were “using” the flatbed or “hauling” a pint of milk and a load of bread…

I meant, you could, but I’d laugh in your face.

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