And that’s the way it should be.
The late 50s or early 60s pickup my dad had as the delivery truck for our family’s Otasco store was easy to get in and out of and to load and unload appliances from the truck bed which could hold easily as much or more than most current model pickups.
A friend has a Dodge Ram 1500. I couldn’t get into it until he got side rails. The sides of the truck bed are almost as high as I am tall. No way I can reach over the sides. To exit the passenger seat I have to turn sideways with both feet out and do a controlled slide out. And I stand 5’4". No such problems with Dad’s old truck even though as a kid I stood just under 5’.
Another friend has a Chevy Silverado as his work truck. He’s slightly short and actually has to climb a rear bumper step to load or unload ladders from the ladder rack.
The full sized pickups on raised suspensions and big “mudding” tires have the front bumpers higher than the hood of my Camry.
Almost all pickup drivers in work trucks seem to be reasonably courteous drivers. It’s the big ego wannabes who are road bullies, as are a surprising percentage of soccer moms with tank sized giant SUVs.
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The formula often seems to be that they have to complete a build in a week or the world will end. I don’t think I’d want one of those on week wonders. One show doesn’t do that, The Guild of Automotive Restorers. I guess there are others, like Wayne Carrini’s show about F40. Those fake deadlines turn me off, and I don’t watch those much.
Marnet, the descriptions you offer are one of the reasons I loved my old Toyota pickups. The beds were low and easy to load, unload, and get in and out of. And I did an amazing amount o f work with both of them, from hauling stone (for a wall), hauling concrete blocks, hauling lumber, and… a biggie… hauling a whole lot of wood to be cut and split for burning. Hauling trees (albeit not huge ones) out of the woods, cutting them to 8’ lengths, and loading them on the truck beat the carp out of my '79 Toyota Longbed, but that’ll beat the carp out of any truck. Actually, I’m not sure it could be done by one man without a lift in today’s pickups. The beds are just too high.
Having seen the amount of work done with pickups before the monsters were created, and having done the amount of work I did with my Toyota pickups, I’m convinced that huge isn’t necessary and in most cases has no benefit except for trucks that’ll be hauling fifth-wheel trailers, flatbeds with excavators on them, large boats, or other truly heavy-duty work. But for those functions there are things like F-350s/450s with crew cabs and duallies. The average pickup gains no benefit from enormous size except to stroke egos.
But they’re profitable… and there are still buyers that want them. 
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I can get a few laughs from reality shows but I don’t believe I have sat through a complete show since the first season of Billy the Exterminator. In that first season he was driving an old pickup that had the floor and dash covered with fast food packages and coffee cups. He looked like he was 1/2 crisis away from bankrupcy. The next season Billy was driving a top of the line pickup and if that wasn’t fishy enough Turtle Man came along trying to out do Billy.
The most troubling concern with those reality shows is that like championship wrestling a great many adults supposedly with sound minds are addicted to them and are certain the story lines are reality.
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Try shoveling landscape rock out of one of those trucks. That’s why I prefer a nice low trailer.
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If reality shows were about reality, they’d be too boring to watch. Even police and firemen spend most of their hours doing boring and mundane tasks.
I drive an older Suburban and still manage to be on the receiving end of a lot of discourtesy from operators of vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Yesterday I was literally forced to stop in my lane while impatient, oncoming traffic went around a city bus. These vehicles (and there were seven) all were fully occupying the wrong lane (mine) and just seemed to be blithely following one another past the stopped bus. I don’t drive regularly anymore but it seems that when I do, rarely a day passes without a WTF moment. Inattention, failure to abide by the rules of the road and lack of civility are becoming an epidemic in these parts.
This week I only had to pick up my Grandson once which was yesterday. I ended up facing an old small Ford Ranger pickup. They made no attempt to turn left in front of me. Hmm…
I had a giant pickup “climbing in my trunk” last night. I was pacing the guy in front of me…what did he expect me to do? (Oops, there I go spewing hate again.)
;-]
I am particularly irritated at such a situation @insightful. What in the world could a sane person expect the driver ahead of them to do when he is following someone? In my case I slow down and stretch out the gap ahead of me and move near the right shoulder to give those important drivers all the help I can.
The funny thing was, he passed me (crossing the double yellow line) then snuggled up to the rear of the car ahead, then zoomed past them when 2 lanes turned into 4, then we all caught up with together at the red light.
;-]
Enough picking on truck drivers. I remember passing the Prius guy with the straw hat on the interstate several times. He was always in the right lane going slower, but when you’d try to pass him on the left lane, he would speed up. Sometimes when we got up to 75 I’d just back off and go back to the right lane again. Other days I’d catch him by surprise and just blow by him before he realized it. I think he was a college professor (Sociology I’d guess), but can’t be sure. I’d see him on the road about the same place several times a week. Haven’t seen him since I retired though, or maybe he changed cars.
You should be ashamed of yourselves, getting in The Master’s way. I hope you stayed a suitable distance behind him at the stop light.
If not, he might go road rage on you. There’s rarely a cop around when you need one.
It’s those times I wish I had a Veyron…
One reason I so liked the 3.8L 6-cyl engine in my '87 Olds was that when someone tried speeding up to cut me off I had the quick response ponies under the hood to outpace them if I had to for safety. It took fuel injected 8-cyls to outpace me due to the low end torque that engine had.
Road rage around St. Louis MO has gotten deadly. One recent fatality was due to a woman tapping her brakes on the interstate to back off an extreme tailgater. The tailgater then sped up, pulled alongside, and shot at her car, killing her passenger. The shooter has not been found.
Several days ago a guy in a big pickup was tailgating a woman’s car so closely she couldn’t see his headlights. She pulled off the highway into a well lit Walgreens parking lot to get away from his aggressive driving. He followed, blocked her car, got out and began kicking her car. She made the mistake of exiting her car to video him and his truck license tag. He attacked her, knocked her down, grabbed her phone and threw it, then tried to run over her driving away. The incident in the lot was caught on store security cameras and he is now under arrest.
A couple years ago some bully in a big truck about ran up my tailpipe and began honking and generally bullying despite my pacing a line of cars in front of me in the right lane with the left lane clear for him to go around. He tried pulling around and trying to push me off into the curb a few times. I called 911 and the dispatcher stayed on the line while I headed toward the nearest police station. When the truck bully realized I was pulling into the precinct station he sped off … with two squad cars in pursuit. They caught him but the cops spared me having my identity in their report. They nailed the guy on observed violations. I suspect he must have had a nasty background for them to carefully exclude identifying me or my car in their report. I REALLY like living fairly close to the local cop shop.
That was the cool thing about when I rode a Kawasaki ZRX1200R motorcycle. You could downshift to 3rd gear, twist open the throttle, and accelerate to triple digit speeds in a matter of seconds. I’d be past them before they even knew they were going to be passed.
However, I never cut right back in front of the cars I passed to “give them a message”. I don’t believe in treating people I pass like it’s they who are the jerks.
That is exactly what I taught my kids to do when/if being harassed on the road. It’s excellent advice, and something to always remember.
A tip of the hat to you.
I know it can be a pain, but you are NOT going to change the behavior of these type of drivers. The only driver behavior you can change is your own. No matter where you live, you can make three right turns to avoid a left. Even a left at a light is not guaranteed, as you wrote. “Right of Way” is not something you TAKE (others are obviously doing that…) but can only yield. It is a theoretical “Right,” but in practice all have to know the system, and agree to abide by it. The “giant pickup” mob seems to not know or care about this.
So: pull into a parking lot, mall, side road on the right, and figure out a way to get from A to B, by way of C and D, and avoiding the *#%#%@ drivers! Use google maps (at home!), including zooming in on satellite view where you can often see the lane markings, and shadows of traffic light structures. Figure out a way to get you and your grandson home in one piece. You will both live longer…best of luck.