I’d use the term mountains loosely when describing Athens, Ohio.

That said, it is pretty with some great natural rock formations at Hocking Hills.

More like duba-you instead of dubya in normal conversation.

https://lemmy.world/comment/13771196

The truck is my primary vehicle. Here’s a summary of its use:

• Towing: We own a 12,000lb camper that we’re using as a primary residence while we build a house. This alone justifies the expense of the truck given how affordable a camper / truck is monthly vs rent now. I also own a 6,000lb mini-excavator and rent other heavy equipment. I estimate about eight uses for this purpose in the last year. Once the house is done, the truck and the camper will be used for a few long distance road trips before we sell the camper.
• Payload Capacity: You’d be surprised how quickly 80lb bags of concrete mix or stacks of lumber add up, quickly exceeding the rated capacity of a smaller truck. I estimate a dozen uses of hauling in the bed that exceeded 1,200lb or more in the last year.
• Commuting: I work remotely in a desk job most days so it sits in the driveway for the majority of the week. I estimate 50 trips into the office within the past year.
• Leisure: We occasionally drive it for errands or weekend activities, but it’s often more practical to take my girlfriend’s Mazda. I estimate two dozen uses for this purpose in the last year.

So that’s about ~74 trips where a truck is not needed and about ~20 trips where it has been invaluable. In my personal opinion, the sheer convenience of ownership outweighs alternatives such as renting when a need arises.

Planning activities around truck rentals would significantly delay / impact progress on my home and frankly, it would add a large amount of stress / reduce motivation to complete work. The nearest rental place is thirty minutes away and they don’t offer trucks with fifth wheel hitch compatibility. It would be another hurdle in an already complicated process.

Trust me, I get it. There was a brief period of overlap where I owned a condo in a downtown area with this truck. Most of my movement within the city was walking so I’d often encounter vehicles with a complete disregard for the safety of pedestrians.

In my personal opinion, it’s typically the attitude of the driver that impacts my safety in a crosswalk more than the type vehicle. I’ve almost been run over by tuned civics racing between lights, clueless tourists in a Prius gawking at buildings, city busses, and the occasional truck driver who has never driven downtown before. Like any type of vehicle, I believe awareness of your surroundings and limitations of the vehicle is key to ensuring your safety and the safety of others.

Ha. Was there a question in there somewhere?

I always find it helps to engage with people and understand their situation before being a judgmental asshat. You might find it difficult to sway people to your point of view with that attitude.

I drive one of these trucks and occasionally a ‘fuckcars’ post pops up in my feed like this one. Here’s my F-350 with standard size girlfriend for scale. Ask me anything.

It’s called “The Handmaids Tale”.

They made it in book and TV show form. Minus the birth problems which kick off the societal change in that story, we’re quickly headed for it.

Europe licenses trucks and trailers differently than in the U.S. An American one-ton pickup can tow at a combined weight of up to 26,000lbs in most states on a standard Class D license. The same license you need to operate a Honda Civic. This weight would require a commercial license in Europe, raising the bar for entry.

The lengths of trucks and trailers is also regulated more heavily due to smaller European streets. A vehicle rated to tow a 26,000lb load in Europe would need to be much shorter in length to abide by these regulations. This is why you only see “cab-over” style “lorries” in Europe.

What follows is my opinion on some additional factors:

It’s more affordable for Europeans to hire a professional driver for heavy loads owing to the short distances between destinations. It’s also less likely that your average European owns land or has a need to haul a heavy load to maintain said property.

Probably miniaturized versions of CIWS / C-RAM or laser systems.

The director of my department just announced a new initiative starting this year for something similar.

Once a month, we now have a two hour meeting where we need to prep and present a five slide PowerPoint to our peers. The slides are focused on project status, work accomplishments, personal development, a life update, and mandatory feedback given to one of our peers in front of the group.

So not only am I forced to share details of my private life to a bunch of people that I hate in a fucking PowerPoint, I have to single someone out with one thing they’re doing well and one thing they can improve.

I saw one that required you to decline every single company that was purchasing marketing data from the site. It was like 300 companies long where you had to click the slider to turn them each off individually.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to discern which setting of the slider is on or off. They use nonstandard colors or don’t explain in text which setting signifies each option.

I agree with your logic. It makes perfect sense to rent a vehicle for edge cases.

However, I disagree that you’re going to encourage mass adoption by asking people to change their lifestyle. A large amount of the US population views their vehicle as more than a tool to get to and from work. It’s an extension of their personality. Road trips might be part of that personality.

They’re sold on the marketing ideals of luxury, comfort, or adventure. They buy accessories for these vehicles like roof-racks for their luggage or campers/trailers to help them travel across the country while keeping that comfort of home. Tens of thousands of campers are still sold in the U.S. every year and EV’s are a nonstarter for towing more than 75 miles.

No one enjoys renting an unfamiliar Honda CR-V where the seat doesn’t feel quite right for long periods of time, there’s something sticky on the shift handle, the previous driver smoked in it, and you hear a plastic creaking sound coming from the back seat. You can’t quite figure out from where and it’s driving you insane.

Until EV’s can match the convenience and capability of ICE vehicles, adoption is going to be limited.

Eh. This charity was done to prove how superior capitalism was to communism at the start of the Cold War and align hearts and minds to Western ideology.

This is right after WWII, when it was common practice to drop hundreds of unguided bombs out of an airplane and blanket entire sections of densely populated cities.

I’d argue we haven’t really changed that much. Charity just isn’t appealing to achieve current agendas.

My partner and I both carry two phones - personal and work. Can’t wait to get kicked out of an AirBnB due to having too many phones on the premises.