[rhuru]

Common sense is the first casualty when any topic has political bias to it. This comment demonstrates that.

Large vehicles are important part of American economy and mostly driven by blue collar workers doing their work. For example things like plumbing, construction site work etc. Now a days environment scientists and engineers too drive these large vehicles as they are very important for their day to day work. Not everyone can drive Tesla Model 3 everywhere.

In fact majority of those large vehicles are you see are mostly driven by such needs ( pun intended).

But the research on this topic itself is pretty shoddy. For example one has to look at other variables. Who was driving when the accident happened ? Chances are someone who was rushing to his work.

A lot of other data points out that the drivers are at fault are often poor people going to their work in their work vehicle. Another data is he victims too are poor people going to their work and disregarding basic pedestrian safety.

These are not men pretending to be rugged.

[crote]

> Large vehicles are important part of American economy and mostly driven by blue collar workers doing their work. For example things like plumbing, construction site work etc.

The problem is that this argument is demonstrably not true. Trucks vastly outnumber blue collar workers, and most blue collar workers would be better served by a Volkswagen Transporter or a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. You're not seeing those in the US because they have an insane import tax.

The traditional target for pickup trucks, farmers, almost universally hate modern trucks because they are simply way too tall to be practical - they'd rather have a 1990 model than a 2024 one.

The vast majority of pickup trucks see zero offroad use, and practically never carry anything in their bed. They are essentially pavement princesses used to commute to an office job.

[steve_gh]

So in my professional life I work optimising operations for large fleets of maintenance workers.

The UK Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate (ZEVM) is setting annual targets for the sale of new EVs in the UK, including vans. The govt stick is large penalties against motor manufacturers for non compliance. Fleet operators are beginning to come under pressure because they can't buy new ICE vans as they are not being made, forcing a transition to EVs.

This is an issue, because the traditional work van (Ford Transit or similar) has about a 150KwHr battery. So you can't do a full recharge on a 1 Phase 7Kw charger in less than 20hrs. And most of these vans have sat outside the drivers house at night so they can go straight yo the first job in the morning.

At the moment the answer looks like data science (but hey I'm a data scientist). With better data on root caused of problems, and on what equipment is actually where, we are able to get much better at knowing what the right tools and parts are for each job. And that enables the vans to carry less stock, which in turn enables us to reduce the van size down to something more like a Berlingo, which has a smaller battery and can be charged overnight on a household EV charger.

[the_gastropod]

> Large vehicles are important part of American economy and mostly driven by blue collar workers doing their work

Aaaaaaaabsolutely not! Trucks outnumber cars in every U.S. state. "Blue Collar" workers represent something like 16% of the U.S. workforce. The vast majority of truck drivers are not blue collar workers.

Other countries have blue collar workers too. And trucks! Have you seen what they look like? Check this bad-boy out. This is peak performance when it comes to manly-man workin' trucks. [1]

[1] https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2FA3BTR/a-small-blue-pickup-utilit...

[twoWhlsGud]

Not to forget the ubiquitous small delivery vans all over Europe that seem to work fine for craft folk. Not everything that's been turned into a culture war by those who are up for profiting needs be.

[CRConrad]

> Large vehicles are important part of American economy and mostly driven by blue collar workers doing their work. For example things like plumbing, construction site work etc.

So explain the difference between the twentieth century (and the first few years of the twentyfirst), when trucks were an exception and cars were the norm, and now. Are you saying there were almost no plumbers and construction workers around then, or that almost everyone is a plumber or construction worker now?