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> I've hauled all three in the sort of vehicle for which you "can't see any justification"

What I said was that I cannot see justification for trucks that are less, not, or barely more capable than smaller vehicles with fewer negative externalities. You're choosing to put yourself in that category it seems.

> Which trims would those be? My SR is the absolute lowest-power trim option available to my knowledge,

The Tacoma comes in "34 flavours" apparently, so... there's a few but looks like the SR with I4 is rated for 3,500lbs. That's 1,000lbs unbraked TWR and 3,500lbs braked TWR.

> and even it readily handles towing loads

Yes? I'm not trying to suggest trucks aren't capable of towing... I'm trying to suggest that other vehicles are a lot more capable than people seem to think and some of these trucks are unnecessary.

The manual for the Tacoma says towing above 2,000lbs requires an anti-sway bar and never to exceed 65mph. Under the same conditions, a Subaru Crosstrek has the same 3,500lb tow rating.

So if you can get by with the 3,500lb towing capacity, you don't need a truck for towing. You've proved the exact point I was trying to make. We are dealing with the negative aspects of truck ownership and there's basically no reason for it. In a society where people were more considerate, that vehicle would not exist. Why are we in this situation then?

> I wouldn't in a million years trust a sedan (let alone something smaller) to tow.

Right, that's why. Over in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere with all the extra safety regulations and everything else they're towing around giant campers with little 0.8L econoboxes without turning the highways into mad max, but somehow that just never made it over here.

In the past while I've hauled loads consisting of:

  - Concrete patio blocks
  - A hardwood king sized bed + headboard; kid's play structure; swingset; and a pile of flatpak Ikea stuff
  - A heavy hardwood hutch, buffet, large kitchen table, and four dining chairs
  - A kitchen's worth of new cabinets, a dishwasher, and related fixtures
  - A kitchen's worth of old cabinets, fixtures, and related construction debris
  - A bunch of yard debris from neighbours' yards after some storms
  - A bunch of lumber from the lumberyard
  - Probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.

Are these things you'd trust a sedan to pull? Because I've been pulling them all with a sedan. And I live in a rural area, so _most_ of these trips are an hour and a half on the highway each way plus whatever urban driving I'm doing.

> Would you use your Japanese compact sports car to haul gravel? Or bags of trash? Or large pieces of furniture? I've hauled all three in the sort of vehicle for which you "can't see any justification"

Again, I'm not saying trucks can't haul things. I'm saying they're not needed to haul things in many situations. Saying that you can do things with your truck is not justifying its existence unless they're things you _can't_ do otherwise. Right off the bat, the existence of trailers, cargo carriers, hatchbacks, etc basically addresses this. But sure, I'll play along.

No, I wouldn't fill my back seat up with gravel. That would be stupid and also horribly inefficient. Gravel's heavy. I pay the guy $50 to use his dump truck to dump 10 or 15 yards on my property instead of making 15 trips with a trailer or 30+ with a truck bed. Thankfully I've yet to run into a situation in my life where I suddenly and unexpectedly need to transport a half a yard (max for the top trim Tacoma's bed capacity) of gravel with no time to just go get my trailer. Is this a thing that happens to a lot of people?

I do haul bags of trash with my car. Every week when I take the trash. Sometimes in the trunk, but sometimes in a small hitch mount cargo carrier.

Yeah, I've moved furniture with my car. Sometimes I need to take a couple pieces off to get it in there. There's a lot of space but the trunk opening's just not that tall. Can get a lot of Ikea boxes in there! At one point I went down to Home Depot for a 4x8 sheet of plywood and I had to pay them $2 to cut it in half lengthwise so I could get it in there. Generally though if I were trying to move furniture I'd either use my wife's hatchback (larger trunk opening's kinda helpful, managed to shove a fridge in there the other day) or, y'know, just use the trailer. Again I find in my life it's pretty rare that I suddenly and unexpectedly need to haul large pieces of furniture.

> without needing a trailer, mind you.

I'm really not sure why this is a benefit. Even though I'm probably moving around more stuff that many people, the vast majority of my driving is still not hauling furniture around. I don't need to pay the costs in space, weight, or fuel economy for the capability to haul stuff when I'm not actively hauling stuff--I just take the trailer off. Much like I don't drive around day-to-day in a 27ft box truck because I occasionally move between houses... I go borrow one from U-Haul. (Which also has trailers and trucks.)

> I can't find anything supporting the claim that pedestrians are twice as likely to die being hit by a full size truck.

Here's a meta-study saying +50%: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20146143/

This was the newer study that was sourced from, though I mixed some numbers up: https://www.justintyndall.com/tyndall_pedestrian.pdf

+68% for "trucks" and +99% (where I got twice as likely) for "full-size SUVs". Given most SUVs are built on truck frames with similar bodywork and styling, I'm not sure what the distinction would be.

But sure, instead of 2.0x or 1.7x or 1.5x we can call it 1.45x. A 45% increase in risk of death as a pedestrian, an increased likelihood of being hit in the first place due to worse visibility, an increased risk of death in a collision while driving because physics, increased pollution in the air I breathe... totally worth it.