THEY'LL NEVER LEARN.

The people who like to deplorable-shame motorists out of their pickup trucks are a perpetual source of fun.  "Pride and Gluttony are both Deadly Sins, but some forms of Pride are less Sinful than others, and environment-shaming sport-ute and large pickup truck owners has long been a cheap virtue signal among the Prius set."  Sometimes the shaming comes disguised as art criticism.  "Streetsblog's Angie Schmitt frets about the angry countenance of pickup trucks."

It's auto show time, and, predictably, the weenie aesthetic comes out.

Shortly after entering the Chicago Auto Show this past weekend, I saw a pickup truck that seemed almost comically large, so I asked my friend to take a photo of me standing next to it. As we continued through the show, the very large front ends with massive grills and headlights on pickups and SUVs were a recurring theme and we took photos of the two of us standing in front of a handful of vehicles from Chevrolet, GMC, Ram, and Ford.

I posted the photos to Twitter, expecting that there would be some kind of reaction to them, but the thread ended up taking a life of its own, with more than 8,500 “likes” and more than a thousand retweets. The responses ranged from declarations that all large trucks should be permanently banned from city streets, to cynical comments questioning my manhood.

Maybe make a dispassionate case for making crashworthiness standards compatible among all sorts of motor vehicle, or for tolling the roadways as if they are productive assets, complete with weighing in motion, or for special movement permits for any trailer longer than twenty feet, or, who knows, calling attention to the weight of the battery packages in those all-electric or hybrid-drive motor vehicles.

But perhaps, when the hybrid-car-scooter-and-bike-trail set devotes as much energy as it does to treating people who don't share their world-view or their aesthetics, the only possible response is a virtue signal of your own.  "People have been hauling boats and stacking plywood in pickup beds for decades, so why does a truck need to have a front end that comes up to my shoulders (and I’m 6’1″)? The sad truth is that it may just boil down to design language and aesthetic." Or perhaps to being better placed to survive an encounter with one of those triple trailer sets on the interstates, or to make some money in the gig economy?

Ask yourself, dear reader, does the first paragraph of this excerpt help advance, or detract from, the Cold Spring Shops recommended argument in the second?

From some of the responses to my thread, it’s clear that in this incredibly divided country the act of simply discussing truck design as it relates to the safety of bystanders can quickly devolve into a culture war. It’s sad that this topic can’t be explored in a rational way without the toxic polarization that taints so many other efforts to reach consensus. However, it’s clear that decisive measures are needed to make new trucks and SUVs safer for those outside of the vehicle.

In Illinois, trucks have separate registration and license plate guidelines, but there’s only a $5 difference between registering a pickup and a standard passenger car. However, within the city of Chicago, truck owners pay $225 for a city sticker, versus $95 for a typical passenger vehicle. And perhaps the Chicago City Council could impose other rules or restrictions for non-commercial trucks and SUVs with the intent of improving safety for vulnerable road users.

What good would a Streetsblog post be, though, without the scolding?