It’s Time To Ban The Sale Of Pickup Trucks
Canada is one of the largest GHG emitters in the world, and has the second highest emission rate per capita of all G20 countries. As of 2019, the transportation sector was the second largest contributor to Canadian emissions.
As such, drastically cutting emissions from the transportation sector is of the utmost importance for a successful climate strategy. One way to help do so is to ban the sale of pickup trucks to all consumers unless they’re able to meet strict requirements to prove it will be used primarily for work purposes.
The transportation sector’s problems go well beyond the pickup truck — we need to shift away from relying on private vehicles entirely, regardless of if they’re a Toyota Prius or a Ford F-250 — but I’ll focus on them because they take what’s bad about cars and make them worse, and yet are coming to dominate the market.
Moreover, as Jason Torchinsky argues in Jalopnik, “The goal of modern truck grilles—especially the larger, Heavy Duty spec trucks—seems to be less about getting the required cooling air and more about creating a massive, brutal face of rage and intimidation.” Pickup trucks have, in fact, gotten much taller, increasing by an average of about 11 per cent since 2000.
To sum this up: Canada is the second-worst polluter per capita in the world; the transportation industry is the second largest contributor to these emissions; pickup trucks pollute significantly more than cars, and are being sold more, meaning the industry is getting more damaging. As a whole, according to a 2019 International Energy Agency report, Canadians drive the most climate-polluting vehicles, due in large part to pickup trucks.
A common retort to critiques of pickup trucks is that it’s easy to be critical of them in a city, but people need them for their jobs. Yet as one article I reviewed while doing research, published in The Drive, is titled, “You don’t need a full-size pickup truck, you need a cowboy costume.”
The article’s author, Brett Berk, notes, “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.”
I’ve moved once every couple years or so for the past decade, but I haven’t purchased a moving truck. I just rent one when I need it. There’s no reason these drivers can’t do the same.
According to Forbes writer Jim Gorzelany, 81 per cent of new pickup truck purchases are four doors, indicating they’re likely not being used for work.
I’m not going to speculate as to why people buy pickup trucks, but the reality is the vast majority aren’t doing so for work purposes.
Their choice is putting us all at risk, whether on the streets, or through damage to the climate. Reducing further destruction to the climate and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is far more important than corporate or consumer freedom.
It’s time to ban sales of pickup trucks for non-work purposes, for all of our sakes.
I swear the guy to raw dogs the author’s wife must drive a lifted 3/4 ton pickup. A Denali HD or Super Duty or something.
He says that pickup trucks are too big, too dangerous, pollute too much, and therefor you shouldn’t be allowed to own one without just cause.
Sound familiar?
I know this article is from Canada but Leftists are the same on either side of the border.
They believe they have the right to decide what you can and can’t spend your money on, and if they don’t like it, it must be banned or have justification for ownership.
This is coming to the US.
They will try to ban your pickup.
At which point I will convert mine into a technical, because fuck you.
“I know this article is from Canada but Leftists are the same on either side of the border.”
Yup. There was some weanie that penned a similar piece for either Bloomberg or NYT bemoaning people buying pickup trucks.
That might be the Jalopnik article referenced?
Don’t think it was that one, but it could have been. All of those useless screeds look alike after a while. I just recall a link on the Twatter profile of some self-righteous, blue check dickhead who was ranting that trucks were too big and intimidating. Seems like all these idiots pull from the same script.
Caltrop dispensers, tear gas sprays and flamethrowers can be mounted to any vehicle, you know.
And there is a particular advantage to EVs… You already have onboard energy storage for the lasers and railguns.
Neat. The Tesla answer to 007’s Aston Martin. Off to the shop? 🙂
Oh, I couldn’t possibly comment…. 😉
This is what happens when market economies become too successful and people no longer understand the relationship between a cows in a field and the ground beef in their neighborhood grocery store.
“81 per cent of new pickup truck purchases are four doors, indicating they’re likely not being used for work.”
Because no work crew needs to move four adult men around!
I remember we had a four-door truck when I was a kid. Five kids, two adults — we’d throw a cap on the back and a mattress in the bed so some of us could lounge back there among the luggage. We made our way to Florida that way for a few years.
And the rest of the year it was a working truck on the farm.
They’re literally called CREW CAB trucks! What’s wrong with these people?
Well, if you live in a fancy condo in the big city and think that milk comes from supermarkets, it would not be surprising you have no clue about people who do real work.
I roll around in a lot of construction areas and places with a lot of G-rides, I don’t think I’ve seen a new regular cab crew or service truck in a fleet in a while unless it was a Class 4 or larger truck. Outside of a couple Terminix trucks, everything I’m seeing is club cab/quad cab/crew cab.
But when someone’s head is permanently embedded in their own anal cavity, I wouldn’t expect them to see the world around them.
And I’m with you on the family travels. Growing up my dad had a 1/2-ton/long bed with a camper shell on it. Many trips were made with my brother and I riding in the bed with the luggage on a bench seat that Dad bolted into the bed. Good times that people would absolutely crucify someone for nowadays.
Davide Mastracci is a Marxist! He knows what is better for you!
Had a local flaming liberal going off in the local community facebook group in much same way with boats on the local lake just the other day. They were disgusted/offended at gas motors but thought they could make their cause appear noble and gain allies among anglers. It was kind of awesome to see everyone completely not having their shit.
Would the left wing’s new hatred of pickup trucks have something to do with their popularity among their political enemies? That was my first analysis of Oregon’s proposed diesel fuel ban.
That said Torchinsky’s analysis of modern pickup styling isn’t wrong. Chevy in particular seems obsessed with making enormous and intimidating slabs of grilles that make a 1999 Ford Super Duty look positively dainty. I see trucks as tools first and I prefer something less cartoonish
Remember the time someone asked reporters on Twitter if they knew anyone who owned a pickup?
Vehicle makers, for years, have been in an industry wide contest to build the f ugliest vehicles possible.
I think as long as Lexus keeps the porn-star-moustache front grille, they win.
Also he’s lying: civilian, non-professional car ownership is among the least emitters of CO².
The “transport sector” get’s dominated by semis, trains and oil-powered ships – not to forget the planes.
Trying to ban civil car ownership while talking about the climate is simply lying to the people about your cause.
Talking about “climate” and “CO2” while ignoring China and India is the bigger lie.
Thinking along the same lines.
“Canada is one of the largest GHG emitters in the world, and has the second highest emission rate per capita of all G20 countries”
2nd highest? Gee… let’s look at the stats, what do you say?
Country the size of the contiguous US — Check
about 1/10th the population? — check
2nd in the world for GHG emissions? — WTF?
Oh, it must be consumer use of pickup trucks. Know why? Because when Mastracci looks out of his window in whatever urban environment he is living, he does not see massive mining machines, or long haul trucks, or trains, or coal fired power plants. He see vehicles that are larger than he thinks are necessary for a city. Therefore, that is the problem.
Typical leftist. Not capable of thinking, or understanding there is a world outside of their immediate environment. Mining is happening somewhere else, thus not the problem. There is a bit too much “think globally, act locally” going on in his mind.
Jalopnik is a special kind of car gatekeeping. Just go into it with the fact that Torch is a wakadoodle. Just like with guns, no one gets to tell me what I do with my vehicle. And that is a common comment there too. You do not have to haul to have a truck, or track your sports car, or commute in your Corolla.
They also go off on people buying new cars and you should buy used. 1. Used cars are expencive right now, and B) if no one buys new then where do the used cars come from?
I have switched to TheDrive, (as a lot of the better writers from Jalopnik did, especially after they voted in a union) but it is starting to bleed Red now too.
“At which point I will convert mine into a technical, because fuck you.”
Are you thinking Minigun or twin M-2s?
Why “or?”
Fixed-front mounted twin M-2s for the driver, pintel-mounted minigun for the passenger.
Watch sales of trucks skyrocket now. Just like when they bitch about guns… some of us already have “stuff” to adapt our trucks into technicals….. (que evil laugh)…
Oh, and round here people buy trucks cause cars resemble roller skates….
I read your blog its so nice and helpfull.
Random idea: a “bipartisan compromise” — we’ll let you add Puerto Rico and DC as states if we at the same time add Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
Or Cuba and Hong Kong, maybe?
The funniest thing is that, if I remember correctly, the new bigger flat front grills on the 2007-ish and later trucks was USDOT requirement for pedestrian safety.
Not commented yet, but we all know that global warming is bullshit. Treating “Climate Change” as if were a real thing, rather than smoke and mirrors, and using that “fact” to browbeat the public, especially “undesirables”, is one of the biggest clubs the socialist Marxists are using today. And too many gullible people are buying it, hook, line, and sinker.
Global warming is bullshit, as we all know.
The Marxists are using this fake crisis for their own nefarious designs.
Every impending ecological disaster that’s been predicted for my 50 years of life have, suspiciously, had the exact same “solution”: global socialism and impoverishment of the vast majority of humanity.
Something similar to this ‘pickups are getting big, scary, and dangerous’ was in the recent Consumer Reports. I remember when they used to actually test stuff and write about it. But I digress…
Do they have some sort of meeting where they dispense the narrative? or are they all just schools of fish?
20 years ago I was riding to a customer with a lefty coworker when his eyes fell on a Ford Excursion. This caused a rant like today’s. “No one should buy that. No one needs that”
I asked him who gives a shit what someone else buys. Still he persisted.
“So. I’m not allowed to buy a cargo van in your world?” No that’s OK.
“Oh. So I can’t buy a stake body truck?” No that’s ok
“What the hell’s the difference other than your malice? Why’d you buy this car? (a mitsubishi eclipse, he’d gotten the sport package) Surely you don’t NEED it, and could’ve bought a car with a smaller engine.
Somehow, that logic went nowhere.
I am amazed at the amount of dictators coming out in the plandemic. They really know what is best for the rest of us, you know, the workers of our first world societies.
I’m not really that amazed at the quantity.
I’m saddened, however, that they aren’t being told to shut up, sit down and stop bothering the adults in the room actually trying to accomplish something.