Ah yes, the 7,000-pound pickup truck traveling down the freeway swerving in and out of lanes exceeding 75 mph. Truly, nothing screams “I’m a rugged individual,” like burning $150 worth of gas to go to class and take up one and a half parking spots while parked there.

How many times have you been on the road and have spotted a large pickup truck in your rearview mirrors and thought, “Oh boy?”

At this point, these trucks feel less like vehicles on the road and more like an annoyance on wheels that take up more parking spots than a car needs. They’re too big, too heavy, too loud and too expensive for the actual lives most of their owners lead. For example, one-third of pickup drivers claim they rarely or never haul with their trucks while two-thirds of drivers claim to rarely or never tow.

So if a large section of those who drive these trucks don’t even use them for their intended purpose, what’s the point? Especially lifted trucks; I mean it’s lifted, how are you gonna load anything into the bed if it’s … lifted? It just screams impracticality. 

If we look at the origin of modern trucks and what every truck came from design wise, we can see how at one point in time, the average truck was made for and bought by those who needed it. It had one row of seats with a truck bed taking up about 60% of the car’s total size. 

Looking at that ratio now, it’s nearly flipped with the truck bed taking up 30% of a truck’s total size as opposed to the cab which has now increased into being two rows for an entire family to fit in. 

But let’s remove the fact that these large trucks are seemingly impractical. They’re dangerous for many different reasons as well. The average weight of a pickup truck has ballooned 32% between 1990 and 2018 adding around 1500 pounds of weight in the process. 

The hoods of these trucks are taller than ever, often at the chest level of the average adult, which means that if you’re unlucky enough to get hit by one, the truck’s grille isn’t meeting your legs, it’s meeting your torso.(!) Sorry that it was really dark. Pedestrian fatalities have been climbing steadily with these oversized vehicles and experts point to the fact they are so large. 

This is all backed by studies as well. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, six out of the 10 most deadly vehicles to other drivers from 2018 to 2021 were large pickup trucks. 

Now that it’s established that these trucks are far more dangerous in comparison to other vehicles, that’s all assuming you even see these behemoths coming. Because if you’ve ever driven at night with a truck behind you, you already know the true horror. The horror that is the blinding LED headlights mounted high enough to hit you right into your rearview mirror. They’re not just illuminating the road ahead, they’re lighting up your eyeballs from half a mile back, which makes it seem like a star is forming on the freeway home from work.

Congratulations to these drivers for turning an average evening commute home into an impromptu vision test.

And yet, every day, more of them flood our streets, lifted, modified, accessorized within an inch of their lives blocking views, clogging lanes and turning any parking lot into an automotive version of essentially trying to build a really tedious LEGO.

Of course, no one sets out to buy a truck with all these horrible scenarios that their car is more predisposed to in mind, it’s a byproduct of a country that is seemingly built for cars, not people. 

Our roads have been designed to prioritize speed and convenience for drivers, while pedestrians, bike riders and everyone else are treated like a side thought at best and collateral damage at worst. It’s a shame that seemingly no one in the boardrooms across America said aloud during pitch meetings for these trucks that “Hey, maybe this is bad for, you know, public safety.”

Look, if you genuinely need a truck for work, great, awesome, thank you for utilizing something for its intended purpose like towing trailers or hauling construction equipment. But if you’re buying a truck for the tough-guy aesthetic of it and because it “looks cool” and parking in a compact spot even though your vehicle is everything but, please know we are all silently judging you.