[throwaway0a5e]

Listen, I can haul sheet goods on the roof of any car all day long and he happy doing it.

But the problem is that YouPeople(TM) (as opposed to you personally) won't be happy about it. Instead of screeching about the environment you'd be screeching about safety. But it's not really about the environment or safety, it's about class. The fact of the matter is that moving any sizeable amount of goods (like some plywood for a garden shed, or a new stove, or similarly mundane things) with a car or crossover just doesn't pass for acceptable behavior for the slice of society that we're talking about here. People need more vehicle than they "need" for the same reason a 30yo finance professional "needs" a couple sets of nice clothes. It's what his peers expect from him. The quirky college professor can haul a sailboat on the roof of his prius and the tweaker won't be bothered for running scrap with a minivan but outside of that it's just not what "nice people" do (not that either of them care about the opinions of the kind of people who deride them). Meanwhile white collar people with three kids won't even shove them in a crossover once a week if they can avoid it. They'll commute in a 3-row SUV that costs twice as much to operate instead.

People buy crew cab trucks and 3-row SUVs because YouPeople(TM) expect them to "act their income" and they "need" the capability of these vehicles often enough to justify it.

[jlcoff]

> People need more vehicle than they "need" for the same reason a 30yo finance professional "needs" a couple sets of nice clothes. It's what his peers expect from him.

I'm afraid you're projecting your own issues on others...

[dncornholio]

Wow.. toxic.. You people? My words and thoughts are my own. Never said you should haul sheets on your roof. That's your words. Have a nice day.

[Ancapistani]

While I didn't reply with the same degree of hostility as the GP, I had the same emotional reaction to your comment. My immediate thought was "who are you to say what I 'need'?"

I'm self-aware enough to realize that this is because of a larger cultural struggle in the US between "rural" and "urban". It's not quite that simple, but that's a close enough approximation for the conversation at hand.

The rural people on the US feel like we are constantly fighting a system in which we have no voice. We're subject to regulations that we feel to be frankly ridiculous; regulations that get in our way, make our lives more difficult and expensive, and most of all... don't even serve the purpose for which they were ostensibly designed.

In that context, the GP's response to your comment is understandable.

[femiagbabiaka]

This is a common sentiment but it always makes me chuckle. People living in rural areas quite literally have more of a voice (as much as that counts for anything with political corruption) than people living in urban areas due to the Senate and gerrymandered congressional districts.

[throwaway0a5e]

It was tongue in cheek/sarcasm. Point is people with the money to buy new buy more vehicle than they "need" because it is what society expects of them so in some sense they "need" it to meet the expectations of those around them.

[jlcoff]

> Point is people with the money to buy new buy more vehicle than they "need" because it is what society expects of them so in some sense they "need" it to meet the expectations of those around them.

I'm afraid that you are guilty of what psychology would call "projection". Unless you can back your views with hard facts. I have yet to meet anyone just blowing away $100k on a truck that don't NEED.