Syringer, I've been asking this same question many times in the SUV bashing threads for the better part of 2 years. The hypocritical idiots always bring it back to the SUV being for posers who never use their vehicles off-road. SO WHAT!!!??
1) Pickup trucks are just as long (most of the times longer than their SUV counterpart), wider, and as tall and get just as bad gas mileage.
2) Pickup trucks are driven by "posers" too. I could go all day long and spot out big Ram 1500s Quad cabs or F-150 crews my lover and span clean with clean bedliners on. 9/10 times the most I see loaded in a "consumer" pickup is a few boxes or a couple of dogs. And I do see the occasional diesel F-350 or Silverado/Sierra pulling a trailer. Truth be told, I see more SUVs (Tahoes and Grand Cherokees) pulling stuff than I do trucks.
3) Most of these compact crew cab pickups can't hold much of ANYTHING (Tacoma, Frontier, S10, etc) anyway.
4) Most of the times, the only pickups that I see doing anything "useful" are those used by businesses and contractors.
The fact of the matter is, when it's my money, I'll buy whatever the hell I want. Just as people who have SUV's will buy whatever the hell they want. Bad gas mileage? I can afford it. Not easy to handle? Go back to driving school.
Or how about complaining about minivans "blocking" your view or "cargo vans" like the Chevy Astro/Express, Ford Econoline, GMC Savanna, etc. The point is, if you have problem driving around suvs, then you need to go back to driving school...god forbid you get behind a semi on the highway...you might crawl down into the footwell of your Geo Metro and cry yourself to sleep like a little bitch. Go back to drivers ed. You don't DEPEND on looking through the glass car in front of you for making decisions. You can't DEPEND on that. Is it nice to have that security though, sure...but it's not a certainty by any means. What if you are behind a panel van, or a semi, or a pickup with a camper shell on it, or a mobile home. Are you gonna sit there and cry like a little bitch and say you can't see? If you are behind an Accord that has 3 people in the back seat blocking your view through the car, are you gonna bitch and moan and scream bloody murder? No, you use what you learned in driver's ed.
If you are driving so close that you can't make snap decisions on changing lanes or what's ahead of you, then it's your own damn fault. Stay a safe distance and keep tabs on the taillamps of the vehicle in front of you. Also pay close attention to the CHMSL on vehicles in front of you. If you need to change lanes, use your eyes and your mirrors and stop relying on "freebies"
I personally know how to drive vehicle from as small as my old '87 Pontiac Sunbird to vehicles as large as my dad's '97 Ford F-150 4x4 long bed with a camper shell. I know how to maneuver around vehicle larger than me and how to approach them. If YOU can't, that's your problem.
As for this bullsh!t about "intended purposes," you tell me what the intended purpose is for these vehicles (I'll give mine):
Dodge Caravan - the ABILITY to haul many people at once
Chevy Corvette - haul two people with the ABILITY to reach 170MPH
Ford Explorer - haul 5 people + cargo with the ABILITY to go off-road
Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab - haul 5 people + cargo with the ABILITY to tow and go off-road
Honda Accord - the ABILITY to haul 5 people + small amount of cargo
Every car has the "ability" to do something. Just b/c you don't USE that ability doesn't mean that you are a loser. If a person doesn't drive their Corvette at 170MPH, I don't hold that against them. If a Carvan is driven by a soccermom and is only filled to capacity once a week, I don't care. If a Honda Accord is only filled with one passenger for 95% of the time, more power to them.
Stop bitching people out about what they drive. NOBODY here uses their vehicle the fullest extent possible. If you did, we'd have a lot of dead people on our hands.
And one other thing, for the pansy who said that he couldn't see around SUV's, your ass is sitting in front of the computer right now, isn't? Must not have been THAT bad or you'd be in a ditch somewhere.