A lot of people need trucks for their work. Hispanics in gardening and construction in particular.
If you think all truck owners actually need one, count how many of the ones you see are carrying some load and do the math.
US-style pickups exist mostly because of weird tax and emissions rules which should be harmonized with cars.
This is the truth and is basically protectionism for the Big 3 American automakers. Don't look for this to be fixed anytime soon. The system is working as intended.
Align their crash ratings and NCAP values with every other car and the problem will take care of itself.
Personally I have the huge white vans because they reduce visibility when driving as well as while parked. I live in a big city and its difficult to drive when there's a wall parked at every other intersection.
Okay, let's do the math.
Suppose you need a truck once a week and it costs $100 to rent one. To rent one would then be $400/mo, which you haven't got. You could buy both a truck and a car and only use the truck once a week, but between payment and insurance then that's again several hundred a month over the cost of having only one vehicle.
Or you could buy a truck as your only vehicle. Then you commute in it two ways five times a week, and it hasn't got anything in it on the way back from the once a week you actually needed it, so it's not carrying any load 95% of the time. But you still need a truck because the alternatives are prohibitively expensive.
Trucks are expensive for the owner and society.
Also, the majority of trucks in the US never do truck things. Like 75% are urban grocery getters. Americans have a serious consumption/ego/entitlement problem. Trucks are a great example of that problem. Instead of just saying, "I like truck. I want truck. I don't care it bad", people make up imaginary math that doesn't make sense instead of just admitting it's an ego thing.
The sad part of all this is the world laughs at the US over this stuff. We're a laughing stock and the people embarrassing us are proud of it. It's so shameful.
"I'm not that kind of American" has become a routine thing to say while traveling abroad.
"only a quarter of truck owners use their trucks’ towing capacity more than once a year. Only about 30 percent of truck owners go off-road more than once a year. And 35 percent of truck owners basically never even put anything in their truck beds"
https://slate.com/business/2022/02/suvs-pickups-heavy-huge-d...
Does it? Toyota Highlander Hybrid gets 35 MPG. Ford Mavrick Hybrid, 38 MPG.
> higher insurance rates for trucks
This is a <$100/year difference for minimum coverage, much less $400/month, and for full coverage the car is actually more expensive:
https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/truck-vs-car-insuranc...
> cost of extra tires(trucks eat through tires)
Truck tires and car tires last around the same amount of time.
> If you're using a truck as a work truck it'll also need to be replaced much quicker, adding to the overall cost.
In that case the car isn't even on the table.
Either you do need a truck for work and then you get an actual work vehicle and not a tough guy cosplay like a dodge ram, or you don't and you shouldn't get one, or at least you should pay out of your ass for the increasing danger, road damage, pollution, etc.
The reality is Americans don't need giant vehicles (SUVs included). But we convince ourselves we're sssppeeecciiiaall.
Other countries do it no problem. Go travel then pay attention to how many giant American vehicles you see. I'll spoil it for ya: you'll hardly see them.
The reality is Americans have an insane ego problem that the rest of the world pays for. The vast majority of Americans do not need anything more than a small sized car. But again, Americans think we're ssspppeeccciiiaaal when we're really just selfish and loaded with excuses.
Also, nice racism? Jeez.