Drivers of four-wheel drive trucks have been taught bad habits.
I blame truck advertisements.
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| Silverado ad |
I got a phone call Friday evening asking for help. A former tenant was at my farm. He was stuck in mud.
Regular readers know I own a farm. I have grown melons on it for 60 years. I am putting in a vineyard.. A farm road goes the length of my farm, from the county road to the Rogue River, almost a mile. The caller had come back to the property to take a look at the river at high flow in the current rain.
This is the start of the road.
A driver of a passenger sedan might look at this road, notice the rain and light snow coming down, and think twice. Maybe the road is not passable; the car might get stuck. But the driver of a four-wheel drive SUV or truck looks at it differently. The driver sits high in the seat, commanding the view. He has seen countless times on TV what a vehicle like his can do. He can go anywhere. He can defeat that road. After all, isn't that what he is paying for?
Halfway down the road, the water table is higher and the road surface got softer. The existing ruts collect rain, so they had gotten larger and softer. The road was worse.
A sedan driver who got this far would likely stop and turn back. They would barely have made it to here. Their vehicles would have been sliding and fishtailing. Their tires would have been spinning and kicking up mud. If they had looked in the rear-view mirror, they would see they had been leaving deep tracks.
The driver of a 4WD drive truck looks at it differently. He owns a performance vehicle. They smash over and through obstacles. They dig right through mud. He has a destination to get to. Forge on!
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| F150 ad |
The former tenant's Dodge Ram 2500 truck gets lousy fuel mileage, but he is proud of his rig. He should be. It is large and powerful. It can do anything and go anywhere. In this case it got as far as the ruts at the top of the photo.
I was able to pull him out.
The driver was apologetic. I tried to be forgiving. Getting stuck is part of life working around a farm. So is getting people un-stuck.
In tomorrow's post I will show why I think the driver drove down this road. He had been infected by TV ads with very bad, very stupid, very dangerous ideas of invincibility and entitlement. The ads normalize reckless driving, excessive speed, and disrespect for the rural land they travel over. Four-wheel drive truck owners have a machine-over-nature idea in their heads, and they have the machine.
For today I will leave with this:
1. Four-wheel drive means you can get stuck farther from the road.
2. Driving on wet ground leaves ruts. Driving on dry ground kicks up dust. Driving fast scares livestock. Driving across creeks and waterways silts up the stream bed and injures wildlife.
3. When you are driving off-road, you are driving on land that was not designed for a vehicle. Don't vandalize it by how you drive on it. If you wouldn't think of dumping garbage on that land, maybe you shouldn't be driving on it either.
4. Real environmentalists, sportsmen, outdoor-enthusiasts, and nature-lovers are gentle with the land they are driving on.
Tomorrow: A close look at some truck ads. A 4WD truck is a bucking bronco. Ride 'em cowboy! Yee-haw!
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16 comments:
Is it advertisements or arrested development? Either way, it's rude, crude idiocy. I'll bet they vote for Trump.
I hate those ads. They encourage idiot losers to destroy our environment and animal habitat. Leave only footprints. Get a life.
In Alaska a lot of people have big 4 wheel drive trucks. Some drive on icy snowy roads as if they are invincible going faster than they should. I felt a level of satisfaction when I saw many of these trucks off the highway stuck in the snow because they lost control. In Alaska it made sense to have those trucks with constant snow or ice, moose to watch out for, and better visibility, but some just can’t restrain themselves when they have that sense of power.
One night a long time ago, this other person and I got stuck in the mud in a car in a pear orchard where we shouldn't have been. The man who looked after the orchard pulled us out with his tractor. Nice man.
When I worked in the woods, sometimes we had to get through deep muddy ruts with our 4WD truck. We'd put on tire chains; they're not just for snow and ice--they work great in mud.
I understand where this blog post is going. But let's not make a culture war issue out of getting stuck in the mud or driving pickup trucks.
Cole has a good point, but I think Peter made it clear: driving trucks isn't the issue. The problem is where, how and why some people drive them. No doubt the people using them to tear up the environment are all guys and probably impaired in some way - genetically, chemically or both. They act like little children playing with toys, but these toys weigh about four tons or more and can do a lot of damage.
About 50 years this month, I began a stretch selling light trucks and cars. I bought a Dodge Power Wagon, because I was selling them, and they were our hottest item on the lot.
One of the first things I learned about off reading was that 4WD is for getting out if someplace you shouldn't have been in the first place. And while I still have a 4WD rig, it's for getting up and down my driveway when it's wet, not tearing up Meadows and wetlands. Up on the Greensprings, not far behind the Tub Springs wayside, there are plainly visible ruts, left by the wagons of emigrants coming West 175 odd years ago. I suspect those ruts on Peters farm, unless repaired ( at Peters expense) would still be there that far into the future as well.
The mentality driving that wanton destruction is the same or at least akin to to the ones "rolling coal". A willful disregard for civil behavior and a total lack if respect for other people and our environment.
Cole Roller 007:
It is a Culture issue, whether you like it or not. And there is a major difference between a logger needing a chained up 4WD to get back to pavement, and an oblivious, rude thrill seeker tearing up a farmers road, mostly because he has no consideration for other people or their property.
Agreed, there are definite places and needs for these type rigs. But as I recall, unless they have relented, BKM and Firest Service types get really upset when the roads they are responsible for maintaining, and require they be repaired as soon as possible.
Peter, AAA would have charged him since he intentionally drove off road. He could have learned a valuable lesson.
I would not have helped him out. He will do it again.
I agree the commercials are to blame.
Data show these vehicles' owners are more likely to be in a fatal accident. They also tend to underestimate their speed, which is why they drive like hell.
Marketing relies on accurate demographics and psychographics.
There are problems with people who drive pickups. Not all of them but enough of them. It's ego
Gun ownership is high.
If you drive in Florida on a major highway, and you see a pickup truck behind you, he will always pass you. Sometimes on the left and sometimes on tae right. Doesn’t matter. He will always pass you. It like they’re trying to prove something. Like they’re the biggest and the fastest.. That goes especially when they have giant tires. I let them pass and stay out of their way. An accident waiting to happen.
Also, I wonder how many off the road trucks actually make it off the road. I’ll bet it’s way under 50%.
Mc, not to mention, because of the styling of these behemoths, the driver can't see anywhere near the vehicle in the area of the hood and front fenders.
Because they improve their Mach, by jacking them up, their headlights are at wye level for any oncoming car or smaller pickup, and create a blinding experience for other drivers.
Off Roading, not reading. Sorry.
I suspect that saying these drivers have been taught bad habits is putting the cart before the horse.
It’s more like there are people who are thrillseekers, and the commercials are showing them something they can buy that will give them the thrills they seek.
It’s not like the people who buy these trucks were going to take up crocheting if they had not been seduced by the commercials.
Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH luxury brands and richest man in the world (as of today) was once asked the secret of getting people to buy his (impractical) luxury brands. He said it was simple: “create desire”. So you are spot on Peter. The marketeers have convinced buyers they can be strong and invincible with their products. Same with exotic cars, which cannot be legally driven to their capabilities, and are beyond the skills of their affluent drivers if they could be driven legally.
The fitness club I used to go to had huge flat screen monitors all over, with clips of people engaged in extreme sports, with pulsing rock playing loudly. “Push” it screams, and “you too can ride mountain bikes over ski jumps!” Or “parkour through cities” like Jackie Chan
Young men are especially vulnerable to these illusions, and selfish disregard of others is more “normal” than in the past. I still wince when I think how very lucky I was to miss a “few bullets” doing some insanely risky things when I was younger. Could have been a statistic.
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