As a person who cares about the environment, one of the things that irritates me the most is when I see huge SUVs, or big pick-up trucks polluting our air and taking lots of space on the streets and parking spaces.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, with the economic uncertainty that it brought, more and more people were buying expensive gas guzzlers pick-up trucks and big SUVs.
I have no objection when a person buys a big pickup truck for work-related purposes or even a person who buys a 4X4 to drive off-road to actually go off-road. But to buy a pick-up truck as a status symbol, I think that’s idiotic.
In Canada and the U.S., the Ford F-150 is one of the best-selling vehicles ever. And those vehicles are being used to cruise on the highway, to go to the mall or to go to the office.
Five of the top-selling automobiles are pickup trucks. Last spring, for the first time, North Americans bought more pickup trucks than cars.
My big question is: Why?
People are not hauling bales of hay or construction equipment.
Of course, car manufacturers are responding to the demand. Pickup trucks are some of the most profitable vehicles on the market. They come with all the luxuries and gadgets of city driving. Leather seats, electronic bells and whistles, four doors, big tires to make an impression, and giant grills.
If the owner wants to display their wealth, there are the “lifted” versions with their high profiles and giant wheels, the tricked-out models with gleaming chrome, extra lights, big bumpers, and fancy racks. Buyers can pay up to $100,000 on luxury models.
It’s not harmless fun. Even though automakers have greatly improved the fuel efficiency of the modern pickup having all those big, gas-guzzlers, polluting vehicles on the highway isn’t exactly kind to the planet.
More than half a million diesel pickups had been fitted with devices that override their emissions controls, dumping pollutants into the air. Assole drivers enjoy insulting environment-conscious people with a practice known as “rolling coal”, some pickup drivers blow past cyclists and electric vehicles and deliberately spew black smoke at them.
There is also the safety issue. Being up there in that big cab over that huge engine seems to make the drivers think they own the road, lesser vehicles, cyclists or pedestrians, be damned. With the higher hoods of newer models, drivers have poorer visibility, creating a blind spot that can hide a pedestrian or smaller car right in front.
Even if they weren’t polluting and dangerous, pickup trucks and big SUVs drivers are saying “fuck you” to everyone else, they are saying: I am bigger, badder, and richer than you. A vehicle that started as a practical tool for hard-working people has become, an insult for the rest of us.
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