Would you drive a garbage truck to work?

Let me start by saying that if you need a truck to do some kind of "cowboy work" or construction work then more power to you! I'm not talking about people, who more than a few times a year, actually do work with their truck.

Most people realize that it would be silly to use a garbage truck as daily transportation, but most people don't realize that using a "heavy duty" pickup is just as silly. A so called "heavy duty" pickup truck is nothing more than a tow truck chassis turned into a luxury pickup truck with leather seats, fancy rims, and pretty paint.

I'm sick of hearing some guy at work who drives his big "mega cab" pickup to work every day rationalize about why he needs a truck. I see him drive into the parking lot every morning. It's just him and his big massive, 4x4, empty, truck and then he climbs down from the big rig and he's wearing his suit and tie like he does every day. Then I start to wonder, why does he drive that all terrain monster truck? He drives on the same roads I do in my little Corolla and I do just fine even when it snows (front wheel drive does very good in snow). Then one day he complains that he just dropped $120 at the gas pump. I ask him why he drives a gas guzzler. And he looks at me with a strange look and says, "I don't drive a gas guzzler, I drive a truck!" and then he starts telling me how he needs his truck to pull his RV. Then I ask him how often he pulls his RV. He struggles to remember the last time he pulled his RV and says, "well, I haven't pulled it recently, but when I first got the RV I must have pulled 2 or 3 times that summer . . . Although, I haven't pulled it much since then . . . But I need my truck".

Ok, I'm not saying he shouldn't be able to buy a heavy duty truck to pull his RV, but he should buy a used economy car for daily transportation. It just doesn't make sense to see him all by himself with that big truck and an empty load. To me it's as dumb as driving a garbage truck to work everyday.

My co-worker was one example of a "heavy duty" driver, but then their are others who actually need a truck, but not a heavy duty truck. For example, I have two friends who both have general construction businesses. One friend drives a little S-10 and the other friend drives a giant red super duty with a super long antennae protruding from the cab. They both typically carry about the same amount of construction stuff in the back of their trucks. I noticed that the beds of the trucks were about the same size. Although the super duty is a much bigger truck, it doesn't have much of a bed because the larger super cab protrudes into the bed and the truck is left with more of a "square" little box. Now when I ask my friend with the super duty why he needs such a big truck he gets all passionate about how he needs it to pull trailers and that he needs it to go hunting. I just drop the subject, but I know that 99 percent of the time he is simply using his truck as daily transportation and not performing any super duty tasks like pulling a heavy trailer. It's kind of like using a semi-tractor rig as daily transportation, just in case you might have to pull a trailer some day.

Lastly, I have another friend who drives a garbage truck during the day. The garbage truck is a wonderful machine. It probably gets worse gas mileage than any super duty or mega cab pickup truck, but it is efficient at what it does. So my friend drives around in his garbage truck all day, but when he gets off work, he climbs into his corolla (he drives a corolla like me) and drives home. The moral of the story is just because you drive a big truck for work doesn't mean you should use it as daily transportation. I know this sounds elementary, but from my observations, most Americans either don't realize it or just don't care.

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