this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
1413 points (96.1% liked)
Fuck Cars
9798 readers
34 users here now
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
-
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
-
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
-
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
-
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
-
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
-
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
-
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Trucks aren't for private contractors, vans are. They have several times as much cargo space in the back for the same footprint, thanks to the invention of WALLS you can lean stuff on. They're much lower to the ground so you don't gotta put a ramp down to load/unload stuff. It doesn't rain on your shit. There's a plethora of reasons why every tradesman and their mom has a van here in Europe.
The only reason American tradesmen buy trucks is machismo marketing, insane tax loopholes, and 1% of them actually needing the offroading capabilities (no, driving around a job site doesn't count as "offroading", a Sprinter will do that just fine). I will die on this hill. Trucks are absolutely awful vehicles in almost every way, which is why everywhere outside NA they're a small niche for offroaders and extremely insecure suburbanites.
Contractor here; vans are commonly used for trades that do lots of service work, and trucks for the ones who tend to do new installs/bigger jobs. You'll see entire fleets of trucks and vans at the same plumbing company for example and see the divide. I'm so often putting gross or unwieldy things in the bed that a van doesn't make sense, and there are plenty of other reasons a van might not be better. I've only ever seen locksmiths in vans for e.g., and never have seen a concrete finisher use anything other than a truck for a different example. It's a tool at the end of the day and such a weird stance to ignore that certain jobs could be better suited to one over the other.
All of that aside, the "vans" I'm used to seeing that contractors use are essentially big enclosed trucks anyways so not sure why you're calling one worse. Maybe it's a regional thing in naming? My truck is smaller than most work vans I see around, so you're saying I should be using the bigger vehicle that's less suited to the tasks I need it for?
I'm talking about these bad boys:
They've also got smaller sizes (down to regular cars with a square trunk like the Kangoo which a locksmith might use).
Ain't no way you can put even remotely as much in a pickup truck as you can in a Sprinter (or equivalent, there are a lot of companies in that game). By putting the bed much lower and having vertical walls as high as will legally fit in a standard tunnel, space is simply maximized in a way that a high bed with short walls cannot compete with, geometrically speaking. I've filled one of these bad boys with enough insulation for a whole house, and didn't even have to bother with straps. If you've got gross shit to put down, that's fine as well, the bed is built for it... Just hose it down at the end of the day lol, it's no different than a pickup truck.
These vans are so spacious that they're frequently converted into minibuses, it's absolutely wild. Throw in a mattress, bedframe, wardrobe, couple of TVs, washing machine, dryer, and you've still got several m³ on top to stuff with boxes and bags and shit. Literally the only downside is that they won't go up an 45° mud slope, which is why pickup trucks do exist in Europe, mostly in mountainous areas and occasionally on logging trails that get really muddy.
Ugh, you do you, but I'll stick with the truck. Having my tools (and myself!) in a separate and locked compartment from the box where all the gross and messy stuff goes is such a quality of life thing, and I don't need to hose it down every day because that's what it's for. I've helped a friend remove a bloated dead deer out if their back yard and can't imagine not throwing up if I had that in the back of a van....
I can grab stuff from and toss stuff into the box without opening or unlocking a single thing (full hands, big gloves, super dirty, etc), and can reach over the side from either side no problem. Plus a tailgate is such a handy workbench when grinding/cutting/drilling or doing anything messy really.
Sounds like that's too big of a vehicle for my tastes. I prefer something a bit smaller for fuel economy and visibility/maneuverability reasons.
Vans are great. Trucks are great. Different tools with different strengths. There isn't a one-size-fits-all for vehicles, so what works great for some might not for others.
Do you... think the back area of the van is connected to the cabin? It is not, the cabin is entirely closed off from what's behind.
Also like I said they've got vans in all sizes. Point is for the same footprint they store so, so, so much more than a truck.