They're a pretty good idea. I think a lot of people who need the cargo area of a pickup for their work don't really need the power or size of North American pickups anyway. So it's just much more efficient, and as an engineer, I'm professionally obliged to love efficiency in all forms.
I think at least that the municipal governments of big cities like Montréal and Toronto should seriously look into these to replace pickups to save on a lot of gas.
Spot on. A practical flat bed does not necessarily require V6 or V8 power, yet most pickups insist on it.
The safety vs. fuel economy argument is valid, but how far do we take it? By extension of the same logic, we should just drive around in armoured vehicles...
Exactly. If crash protection is so important, why do we allow pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists to use the streets? Crash protection IS important, but obviously we're missing some point. Perhaps that point is that the manner in which a vehicle is operated is more important than crash protection. While it makes sense to build crash protection into cars where it is reasonable to do so, it's too bad the emphasis has been there, rather than making a higher priority of educating and forcing road users to drive safely.
What we're seeing is that the emphasis on crash protection is running head-on into the need to be efficient. It takes less resources to operate a vehicle safely than to protect idiots from any possibility of getting hurt by their stupidity.
And if vehicle size matters, we'd all drive semi tractors or highway buses. The roads should be made safe, via enforcement, for light vehicles, rather than restricting road use to owners of personal tanks.
Poll