to not understand why people drive massive pick up trucks?!

[PyongyangKipperbang]

There seems to have been a big increase in these recently, and I dont get why!

They are not filled with gardening/farming equipment and clearly used rurally, but immaculately clean with those "boxes" or whatever they are called creating a normal boot. So why bother? They are so wide that a lot of UK b roads are too narrow for them to pass another vehicle, they are no more useful or practical than other 4x4 cars and they are very expensive to buy and insure. There are now several on the school run and its bad enough around school at the best of times, without these behemoths taking up masses of space. You cant park next to one in bay parking as they are so wide and they are UGLY!

I have noticed that a certain type of man seems to drive them, flame me for making generalisations, and I am wondering if they are the new generation of Mid Life Crisis Car.

It's all to do with the tax benefits. Most people I know who have them own their own Company.

This is taken from auto-trader:-

Driving or supplying a pick-up truck (as long as it’s one that's classified as an LCV – see above) brings tax benefits to both employees and employers. That’s because as well as extremely favourable Benefit-in-Kind rates for drivers, (VAT-registered) purchasers can reclaim substantial amounts of VAT, while companies can often write off the full purchase cost against tax.

This is the point though isn't it? You choose a small car that you like, and other people choose the car they like. They don't have to justify their taste and preferences.

But that's not what you said, is it katronfon? You said people were weird and jealous.

When people do things that adversely affects other people (driving gas guzzlers for no discernible reason, for eg) then yes we have the right to judge. Judge and protest afaic.

My SS has one, he's a tree surgeon and needs it for getting up rutted tracks, carrying loads of gear and towing a trailer laden with tree trunks. It's their only vehicle, so they use it for shopping trips and everything.

My neighbour has one, she's a landscape gardener and uses it for tools, equipment and materials.

My friend has one, she breeds and shows dogs and has the back, with the cap on, for all the dog cages etc.

I don't know anyone who has one as a status symbol, but then we live in rural area, so there's plenty of genuine need.

We've borrowed one of them a few times, for trips to the tip, picking up furniture etc. They're bloody handy.

How about you poke your attitude up your arse?!

I asked a question that everyone else managed to discuss without being so bloody rude, whats your problem?! I was clearly talking about pick ups that are used instead of normal cars, not ones that are used for horsey/farming/business reasons but hey you take defensive rudeness and run with it if it makes you feel good.

According to my Mum because they have small dicks

I like the sound of your Mum DXB

That was to FlyingElbows btw.

Astonishing number of people who cannot read on this thread aren't there Pyong?

I want one, I just think they are cool
I don't have a dick and I think my vag is about normal size ( although after 2 babies it may be on The largish size)

I have a theory that soon normal sized cars will be in the minority. Several posters here have explained why they have pick-ups or 4x4, but that can't account for everyone who drives one.

Surely once we've discounted things like towing ponies, mobile homes and transporting corpses we should be thinking about things like fuel consumption and emissions. Tall cars are more likely to do serious injury to pedestrians due to where they strike the body, plus they mean pulling out of parking spaces and junctions is really tricky if you're in a normal height vehicle.

I think it will go on and on until people are driving round in this.

You might have a lovely big car, but not much going on between the ears is there? (that's to all the posters who said I have one to do all the heavy towing/tree surgeoning/carting equipment and tradesmen stuff about). Cos op wasn't talking about them in her op was she?

I can understand you might need a 4x4 in the very very hilly parts of Wales or Scotland

We live in a town an hour's train ride from central London, but have been unable to get out by car for days at a time when it snows. If the bloody councils went back to gritting the roads, fewer people would need 4x4s. And the state of our minor roads is so bad that it's like being off-road on most of them.

When we had 3 snowy winters in a row, I seriously considered getting one as I couldn't go to work for several days.

I have one (hilux) I also pull a horse trailer, have 2 stinky labradors and go camping. It's a fabulous work horse of a car and also fab in the snow and icy roads in rural Durham. However I may take it to Sainsbury's or Waitrose today to get some shopping, just to piss some of you off!
But then again I may take my BMW...
That's another judgemental thread...

Oh an dp has a plumbing business that he uses hilux for and gets VAT back as it's a commercial vehicle.

If there is one thing this week has shown us surely, is to let people do what they want and tolerance towards others..

They have them so they can drive as they like, cut people up and sit right on the arse of little cars like mine that they would flatten in an emergency stop situation.

I'm NOT jealous, because I love my special-edition, cute-as-a-button, flirty, oversized-engine, shit-off-a-shovel, man-magnet car. I just fear for my life when faced with these monsters, the drivers of which are so secure about their own safety that they don't give a monkey's about anyone else. AND they park in spaces that are too small and open their doors onto other people's cars, dinking them. So yeah, I'm gonna judge and I don't care.

But Bibbity, as I said- to our neighbours or whoever else might know we have a 4x4, they don't know that DH needs it once/twice a week for work and they may think we just use it for arsing around going to Tesco.
People aren't towing stuff all the time so are they never allowed to drive their 4x4s unless they have something hitched to the back of it??

I know someone who has one

Coincidentally he does actually have a small dick

So how do you know this Georgie ?

But if my Chelsea Tractor is parked in Waitrose, you couldn't tell I was a horse owner.

Daddy Cow also has a 4x4 and uses it to tow his racing car to events when its not set up as road legal. How would you know that if he suited and booted for work? (He also valiantly went to collect people's Christmas shopping and wine one year when the village was snowed him, he's a hero)

MiL has one too, you'd probably judge her dropping off the youngest at private school in it. But you don't know that she lives on a hill at the top of a private lane that would be impassable in winter in a normal car.

You really don't know a lot of the time why people have a specific car.

My bosses have them. Main boss has a parking camera in his so insists they're easy to park.

Both of them think they are fucking kings in them.

They are in the electrical and HVAC industry so occasionally have to transport large items. Apparently they look more professional than a Ford Transit.

We had a pick up for a while. We had a large dog, several teens, a baby and half a ton of baby equipment. Ideal vehicle for that combination, especially when dog shat all over the truck end coming back from the vets. No stench in the cab.
I find it rich that someone with a 4×4 is complaining about pick ups. There is no justification at all for driving those mahoosive BMWs in a city. They are just a normal car on steroids and take a disproportionate amount of space on the roads for no added features.

My problem is judgemental people like you. Simple. You know naff all about the life behind anyone's choice of vehicle yet you feel free to sneer and judge on the basis of either no fact or untruth. You may only see truck owners like me on the school run or at the supermarket and see no other part of our life yet you're so smugly self satisfied in your own imagined superiority (or threatened in your possible feelings of social inferiority?) that you think you can judge our lives?! You can indeed ram it up your arse. Sideways if you like.

I have a Ford Ranger as my company vehicle. It looks like the OP described. Shiny and chromed up. However I do work in construction. My management grade should have something like a Volvo S60. Completely impractical for me tracking over sites. But I am a short blonde female so if you see me in Tesco on Saturday morning you would probably think the same . Oh and the tax is miles cheaper too. BTW it is a pain in the arse to park.

Have you seen the price of a brand new pickup compared to something like the Discovery or the Shogun? Add in that it's a commercial vehicle and you can claim all the VAT back and frankly it's a no brainer, why don't MORE people have them.
We don't have one at the moment but used to have a hilux, nothing better than driving to the middle of no where, blankets and duvet in the boot and watch the stars....sure we can put blankets down anywhere but there is something magical about a truck.
We currently have 2 defenders and a shogun as well as a combi van, I bloody love big cars and pat my shogun and call her a good truck every day. You could argue we only need one large vehicle in the family...but these are our toys and we like them.
Oh and I'm more than willing to totally go off the road, on the verge to let little cars pass because it's bumpy and fun