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Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

economist.com

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Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#491

Post by robertlagrant »

burnished wrote: post #472
deaddodo wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While LA is hardly a paragon of bicycling accessibility, it does have a ton of dedicated cycling routes (I’m talking 8-12+ ft wide, dedicated pathways) that can get bicyclists to most of the major hubs throughout the city. Even still, you’ll see the occasional bicyclist(s) who wants to drive down Washington Blvd during rush hours Because-They-Can(TM) and the cycling path is a little too inconvenient for them, holding…

How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people?

> How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people?

If you apply this to walking as well, you'll see how silly it is.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#492

Post by burnished »

ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #488
burnished wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people?

NO. They're leaving the infrastructure we ALL paid to build for them vacant, and blocking that which we paid for to accommodate motorized vehicles.

So, your assumption is that they are all just a bunch of uppity jackasses instead of semi rational human beings? Go give those routes a ride chum, you'll probably figure out whats going on in a hurry.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#493

Post by mcv »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #245
nyx wrote: post #29

The 25-year import rule here, which bans Americans from importing vehicles from other countries unless they're 25+ years old, is just awful for those of us who would be interested in driving small, efficient foreign cars. It would be great to live completely car-free, but absent major changes to how we plan our cities, it's just a sad reality that cars are a necessary ingredient to life in the vast majority of Americ…

There's electric bikes in China that are more like a Vespa than anything. Commuting this way was pretty great when I owned one. The range is perfect for urban commuters, charging it at night is basically negligible in your power bill, it slips right past the cars so there's no such thing as traffic (whatever cars pass you, you pass them right back by the next red light), likewise parking is a non-issue as it takes a…

You mean fat-tired e-bikes? I see them a lot in Amsterdam too. They're definitely more like mopeds and scooters than bikes, unlike regular e-bikes that pretend to be bikes. I'm not sure which ones I prefer (I'm not a fan either way), but they're both a massive improvement over the old fuel-burning two-stroke mopeds and scooters. (By Dutch law, two-stroke engines didn't have to meet the same pollution rules as 4-stroke engines, so these things were pretty dirty.)

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#494

Post by foldr »

robertlagrant wrote: post #491
burnished wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people?

> How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people? If you apply this to walking as well, you'll see how silly it is.

There are lots of roads in the US where there’s no sidewalk and you have to walk along the edge of the road if you’re a pedestrian. What’s silly about this? In general, it is perfectly legal to use roads for cycling and walking (though I'm sure there is some variation between jurisdictions).

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#495

Post by mcv »

ElFitz wrote: post #371
iambateman wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true…and also American drivers are legitimately aggressive toward these kind of vehicles. They have a terrible reputation, primarily because they get used a lot by people who can’t afford a car. I wish it were different, but driving a moped/Vespa on American roads is a pretty big risk.

So American drivers are aggressive towards those they think to be poorer than them? Why do you think that is? (genuinely curious)

This is a weird cultural thing about the US. I once read about an experiment were people were sorted from rich to poor, and were then given an amount of money to give to a person next to them, either just a bit richer, or just a bit poorer.

In practically every country in the world, this experiment resulted in people giving money to the poorer neighbour. Only in the US did they give it to the richer neighbour.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#496

Post by mcv »

ricardobayes wrote: post #481
deaddodo wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I've seen plenty of jackass drivers threatening or acting aggressively to cyclists in Europe. Even the Netherlands, of all places. The biggest difference is there are more protective laws / dedicated bike lanes and the critical mass of cyclists means you might be swatting at a bee swarm.

Interestingly in Spain cyclists are well-protected and ordinary drivers who otherwise might drive pretty unsafely, take care of them. Coming from a different place it's so weird to experience someone driving 35 km/h behind a cyclist on a country road because there is a solid white line and a "no overtake" sign. Even if they do overtake (legally) they always keep at least 1.5 meters. There was a huge awareness campaig…

Is that true? 30 years ago I heard that Spain was notoriously unsafe for cyclists and some car drivers might intentionally endanger or hit cyclists in ways we now hear from the US. If that was true then, and now the attitude in Spain has changed so much, I dare say there's hope for the US as well.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#497

Post by mcv »

fortuna86 wrote: post #427
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are aggressive as hell. I'm willing to bet that cyclist are maimed and murdered hourly by aggressive drivers and get away with it. I was personally ran off the road by an SUV because I apparently angered the driver, because yeah, killing me totally teaches me a lesson.

US isn't even on the top 10 list of worst / most aggressive drivers. They at least respect lanes as drawn on the road.

These are not necessarily the same thing. In Indonesia, people completely ignore lanes, and instead fit cars and other vehicles into the available space as if it's a tetris game. But they have a lot of mopeds and surprisingly few accidents, because when it's that crowded, they go slow.

It's terrifying for a foreigner, though.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#498

Post by GiorgioG »

chrisco255 wrote: post #321
libraryatnight wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people with those ridiculous big trucks, and 2 of them use them for utility, one has a boat and one has a 5th wheel. The others just...have them. So until there's zero people driving them for vanity or aggression reasons, it doesn't feel dishonest at all. Your response feels like a typical US response to social ills - turn a blind eye to a problem because a) the thing causing the problem is fun/popula…

I know a lot of people who drive big trucks, and all of them regularly use them for: hauling building materials, towing RVs, towing boats, towing four wheelers/dirt bikes/UTVs/snowmobiles, pulling utility trailers (for trash pickup, job site cleanup, lumber & metal, piping, furniture, landscaping, tree service, etc), tailgating parties, hunting, mudding, off-roading, barbecuing (towing a smoker), etc. Literally don't…

I drive a 2016 F150 crew cab, my first truck and generally speaking I love it. Aside from the usual utility (being able to haul large things like plywood/drywall for home projects or 25 bags of mulch every spring), my son and I play ice hockey and the equipment bags are large, plus the hockey sticks themselves are up to 5 feet long. I see many families at the rink struggling to store a bag or two into their SUVs and it’s a tight fit at best. I didn’t buy this truck as some kind of manly status symbol - it’s a comfortable and versatile vehicle and I make no apologies for owning it.

As I get older I’ve grown less tolerant of people trying to tell other people how they should live. Feel free to live your own life as you see fit as long as you’re not directly hurting other folks.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#499

Post by mcv »

HWR_14 wrote: post #467
worthless-trash wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain this a little more (I dont live in the US and a preliminary search is failing me). It sounds as though the 'regulations' are preventing US consumers from having a choice in trucks, which.. kinda makes no sense from what I've seen in the wide range of oversized trucks in the US.

Bigger vehicles are "trucks" and smaller vehicles are "cars". They have different standards. So while a small Japanese truck may have more efficient than a larger truck, it is legally a very inefficient car. This is also why SUVs exist, they are legally trucks for fuel efficiency/etc.

Is this why American cars keep getting so ridiculously large? Because bad rules make them count as efficient even if they are woefully inefficient?

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#500

Post by tecleandor »

itronitron wrote: post #189
LinuxBender wrote: post #4

I've seriously contemplated getting one of these. Street legal, fuel efficient, simple, but when I started researching them I started to see a pattern. It's hard to find anyone in rural areas willing to work on them and not all mini trucks are equal. Some are not shipped correctly and have frame rust issues. There are YouTuber's that cover some of the models and the gotchas and things to inspect. I would never buy on…

>> the owners somehow manage to keep them running the people that depend on these vehicles are particularly tuned in to how to keep them alive... Years ago, when my wife and I lived in a 'rural adjacent' community we had a ~20 year old manual transmission european sedan sitting in our driveway for about a year, tires slowly deflating, until one couple stopped by to enquire about it. My wife told them that if you can…

OOC, what car was it? :)
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