[kubectl_h]

> 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.

[jakelazaroff]

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...

[Aurornis]

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.

[Aurornis]

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.

[ricardobeat]

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.

[cosmic_cheese]

> 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.

[orbital-decay]

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.

[goosejuice]

> 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.

[lucumo]

> 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.

[scott_w]

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.