• @constnt
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      3810 months ago

      Because car companies send lobbyists to Congress and pay to influence bills.

        • @seaQueue
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          710 months ago

          It’s called lobbying if it occurs in the registered geographic region of Washington DC, everywhere else it’s sparkling bribery.

    • @AngryCommieKender
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      2810 months ago

      At the time the law was passed, the carve out was for work trucks which made a minority of the market. Possibly less than 10%, but they also put tariffs on the light trucks imported from Asia, and so now almost 30 years later we have the situation we’ve got now.

      We need to revoke the tariffs on the light trucks for normal people.

      Also make it so you have to have a business licence to buy them, and a CDL to drive these “work trucks”

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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        910 months ago

        Does anyone make light trucks anymore? Even Toyotas are 3x bigger than they used to be.

        • @AngryCommieKender
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          810 months ago

          Isuzu still has a light truck division, and the Asian market still has loads of smaller vehicles, we just need to get off this “tank obsession” here in the US

          • @[email protected]
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            fedilink
            1110 months ago

            In Europe we have vans, they use barely more fuel than regular cars (at least until the really big ones) and can be used for just about any trade.

        • @afraid_of_zombies
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          110 months ago

          Someone must be. Every time I am in Asia I see mini pickups. Would love to have one for my work.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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            210 months ago

            I looked everywhere for a truck of normal size when I was truck shopping. Midsized trucks are bigger now than full sized trucks were when I was younger. The only way to get a small one in the USA is to buy something that’s old.

      • @brygphilomena
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        210 months ago

        Those damn chickens ruining light truck imports.

    • no banana
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      1510 months ago

      Makes money without having to make effort to better their cars, seems very intuitive.

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      310 months ago

      because they didn’t want to piss off the blue-collar demographic, they’re a huge voting block and drive trucks for work.

      that’s politics for you. creating nonsensical laws that aren’t made to fix problems, but only to curry favor, be that with voters, lobbyists, whatever

        • stinerman [Ohio]
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          810 months ago

          Yes. A lot of the people who drive trucks do so because “I’m a big boy! Listen to me make lots of noise in my big lifted truck! Vroom Vroom!!”

          If people are actually using it for a small business or whatever, sure, I’ll live, but most of the people who buy them are just buying them because they want people to know their dicks are small.

        • @baldingpudenda
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          610 months ago

          Should be to work. I work in an office and about 25% drive trucks to work. Not one of then tow, off road or carry anything in the back, but will definitely pay 125k thanks to loans on their big boy diesel truck.

          • @afraid_of_zombies
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            210 months ago

            One of the laziest shop steward’s nephew I have ever dealt with had one of those trucks. You telling me a guy like that is hauling lumber on the weekends?

      • @[email protected]
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        410 months ago

        and drive trucks for work.

        Over here (in Europe) they just changed that. Reduced tariff is only for trucks registered to a company. Private persons pay full. It cut back on truck sales drastically.