Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by brandonmenc | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

brandonmenc

> Why do you need a truck?

To haul dirt. To haul junk out to the dump. Etc.

Do people load their Transits with piles of dirt and mulch? I doubt it.

I live in the US and have a small house in the city, and I haul stuff like this all the time.

Yes, you can rent a pickup truck as needed from U-Haul, but that gets old real quick.

Yes, I would love it if there was a nice small or mid-sized truck with an extended bed available, because most trucks are overkill for my use case.

But this idea that no normal person needs a pickup truck a dozen times a year is just weird.

View on HN

Landscapers have trucks here too, but they look like this https://iveco.dk/shopping-varktojer/kampagner/MY24-IVECO-Dai...

For personal use, like you mention, people use a small trailer. You own one or borrow it freely from many places, hitch it to your car, haul dirt, and then detach it. No need to drive a truck everywhere because you need to haul some stuff once a month.

> But this idea that no normal person needs a pickup truck a dozen times a year is just weird.

Yet the US is the only country where office workers own trucks. The only real use of a F150 style truck is offroad hauling, which is not something most people have to regularly do.

You borrow it freely in places where you don’t need it. In rural areas they aren’t available. And getting a trailer and towing it is t as convenient as just driving a truck.

Sure, trucks make sense on farms and elsewhere with bad roads. The issue in the US is that people use them in the city.

Let’s not oversimplify. For example, waste transfer station in my city forbids use of trailers of any kind.

> Do people load their Transits with piles of dirt and mulch? I doubt it.

I am from the UK but live in Canada. I only see three types of businesses using those Transit style vans here in North America: food delivery, parcel delivery and landscaping businesses. I assume the landscapers are carrying dirt at least some of the time.

I see carpenters and electricians who trick them out with a little workshop, but that's really it. Landscapers it makes sense because you're hauling equipment and storing it in the van, so you can probably both store more and protect from the elements

The split for the rest of the world is: Transit-like van for almost everything in places with real roads, Hilux-sized truck in places without roads and contractors who mostly carry dirt, gravel etc. Only the US and Canada use F150-sized trucks.

Point of order: dirt goes in your dump trailer, hauled of course by your truck.

How far are you going to haul that dirt?

Trucks think only trucks can tow.

I tow a 24 foot boat with an Audi Q7. Reasonably frequently, truck guys say something like "You tow that, with THAT?"

Uh, yeah. 7700 pound tow capacity (nearly as much as a base F150). Tows really well.

The Tacoma has an extended bed version that is on the smaller end of pickups.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com