"And she'll have fun fun fun
'Til her daddy takes the T-bird away."
The Beach Boys, 1964
I have been complaining about truck ads on TV for years.
Truck ads have an implied political message that it is OK -- fun, thrilling, and manly -- to treat nature roughly.
The ads casually make the wide-open spaces the victim. Most of the environmental challenges facing us involve shifting the burden of externalities. The cheapest, easiest thing to do is enjoy a benefit and put the cost or burden onto someone else. Forty years ago, when I held local office, lumber mills fought the expense of putting air filters on their emission stacks. The local air was their dumping ground. It was good business, but bad for the environment. The issues today fit the same theme, whether it is fossil fuel emissions, railroad and airplane safety, chemical spills, or timber harvest practices. Banks want to enjoy the upside of risky profits, then give the downside of bailouts to the taxpayer. It is externality shifting. I want the public to notice when externality shifting is happening and to protest it -- not to be blind to it. The driver is having fun. The land is getting abused.
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| Toyota Super Bowl Ad: 30 seconds |
The Chevrolet Silverado ad is a mini-drama of a good father taking his sleeping family out into open country, beginning in the dim light of dawn.
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| Silverado Ad: 60 seconds |
The landowners gave permission to film these ads. A remediation crew repaired the damage caused in filming this ad, at our expense. This ad was just pretend. Don't drive like this. Slow down. Be safe. Respect the land you are driving on.
I don't expect to get my wish.
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23 comments:
Yes Peter your disclaimer is the equivalent of advertising a drug with the warning taking this drug will make you impotent, don’t t take this drug if you wish to have sex or eventually children.
You take out all the fun of being manly, so you must be woke. Why can’t a guy tear up the countryside with his truck. I especially think it’s cool to make your truck elevated so you are higher than everyone and therefore superior to everyone.
Good example of toxic masculinity.
Unfortunately, for some reason, I think it is Nissan who features a young, blond woman being disrespectful and driving like a jerk on steroids. The "aggressive female driver" ads turn me off every time. Nissan definitely has a thing for fast, aggressive and dangerous driving. Their ads are repugnant and irresponsible.
I like the suggested disclaimer. Peter isn’t criticizing the farmers and contractors who use the trucks for their intended purpose, but the vandals who use them to trash the environment. That’s why I said yesterday that they’re probably Trump supporters. He’s a vandal trashing our government, so they can relate.
Actually, I am bothered much more by speedometers which routinely go up to 160 miles per hour, while also failing to display a few relevant numbers like 35 mph and even 55 mph. Why is that, when no driver should ever be going over 80 mph?
If these were liquor ads, they’d be telling us: “Moderation is for wimps. Have a few more and you’ll be the handsomest, strongest, smartest man in the room, if not the universe.”
And blind oncoming traffic, a major reason I resist night driving especially on the highways.
Posted for Michael Trigoboff:
Two things are needed to fix this problem:
* places where it’s legal to do insane things with your truck, and
* Draconian enforcement if you do it anywhere else
The legal places could probably become very successful businesses.
You can indulge in all of the moral disapproval you like, and it might make you feel virtuous and smart, but the people you are directing it at won’t give a rip.
“Basket of deplorables“ didn’t work out that well for Hillary. Greta Thunberg’s disapproval doesn’t intimidate most people; it just annoys them.
Agreed. Nothing says "owning the libs" like polluting air and trashing thr planet.
I drove a pickup truck full of classmates to Yosemite National Park a few years back.
Because I'd been there before I offered to drive so the truck's owner could watch the scenery.
As we're traveling along the Merced River he comments how fun it would be to drive a monster 4x4 through the river.
Those who make lame excuses for the vandals don't seem to get that it isn't just moral disapproval being directed at them. What they're doing is illegal, whether it's tearing up the countryside or trying to overturn elections. Of course they don't give a rip - that's their nature.
Places where it's legal to do this sounds great but just think of the mitigation for air quality.
Whenever I see a pickup truck at the gas station I comment that I nearly brought a pickup truck (which is true) but I knew my budget would be held hostage by the oil companies and I didn't want to fund Middle Eastern terrorism
Then I hop into my PHEV and drive away.
Proposing a practical solution to the problems caused by off-road trucks is not making “lame excuses” for bad behavior.
I wonder what part of “Draconian enforcement” deserved categorization as a lame excuse. “Illegal” is only relevant if the law is actually being enforced.
Places where it's legal to do this sounds great but just think of the mitigation for air quality.
Isn’t there an example of just this sort of thing in the Oregon dunes?
We are supposedly entering an age of electric vehicles. Electric offroading would not produce air pollution.
Besides, we have to find a practical balance between enforcement of the laws and allowing people to do something they want to do. In a democracy, compromises are necessary.
One of the very few times I find myself agreeing with Professor Trigoboff. Without serious enforcement, the laws become a joke.
And enforcement does not end when a Cop writes a ticket, but when judge levies a serious fine or impounds the offenders weapon or stinking offroad vehicle.
I wonder how pervasive it really is. I spend a good bit of time in the back country in the Pacific Northwest, and the young guys I see tearing up the backside of logging roads are driving old Toyota pickups and jeeps with lift kits. The $60k + vehicles you see in the advertisements are often driven by hunters and fishermen who are typically the most careful because healthy animal habitat is important for their sports.
For the adventurers, gas costs to get to these places is expensive and to transport dirt bikes even more so.
I think the ads appeal to the image, not the action. I was at my nephew’s bachelor party up in northern British Columbia. The young guys were all talking about their “rigs” and the money they sunk into suspensions and tires. I asked what kind of off-roading they did. They laughed. “You thrash that kind of money off road” they said
One of the very few times I find myself agreeing with Professor Trigoboff.
It’s a start… 😀
Making the sort of smoke and tracks that Peter has been picturing is illegal as well as immoral, but as Professor Trigoboff points out, the people who do it don’t give a rip. They delight in the noise, fumes and environmental damage – it’s called “owning the libs.” So, it simply isn’t logical to assume that providing a place where doing it is legal would fix the problem. Draconian enforcement might help, but with the proliferation of guns and drugs in our society, most cops have bigger fish to fry.
A frequent commenter posited the following. I will show it but I disagree with the premise. This particular rut-maker was acting in ignorance, not in a desire to injure. He did "give a rip." I blame commercials because I think he and other drivers are insensitive to what off road vehicles can do. They are looking ahead at the challenge, not behind at the tracks. Four wheel vehicles aren't understood to be weapons of destruction. The driver wasn't a vandal. He just thought he had a destination he should be able to get to. Here is the comment:
"Making the sort of smoke and tracks that Peter has been picturing is illegal as well as immoral, but as Professor Trigoboff points out, the people who do it don’t give a rip. They delight in the noise, fumes and environmental damage – it’s called “owning the libs.” So, it simply isn’t logical to assume that providing a place where doing it is legal would fix the problem. Draconian enforcement might help, but with the proliferation of guns and drugs in our society, most cops have bigger fish to fry."
There are plenty of places where off-road recreation is legal and no generalization is true everyone, but if you don't think people doing it illegally are deliberately causing harm, you must not have run into snowmobilers doing doughnuts on cross-country ski trails, or tracks like these in our parks:
https://www.opb.org/news/article/illegal-off-road-crater-lake-fine/
Kicking up dirt, which is a big part of off-road travel, produces a lot of air pollution.
Why do you think construction companies spend so much on mitigation?
Think, Michael, before you post.
All, suggest you read White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller's book that dives into why rural residents support a political party that does nothing to make their lives better.
It devotes a lot of space to the pickup truck as symbolism of their anger, ignorance and gullibility.
To Mc,
If you want to ban offroading, be my guest. Go and start a political movement and see how far you get.
I am not an offroader. I don’t have a dog in that fight. But when I think about it (thanks for the reminder), I’m pretty sure that what you want will be a political nonstarter.
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