Trucks are obtrusive, unnecessary and ugly. We are humans, not elephant seals. Males need to stop equating their worth with the size of the horns they honk. No college student living and driving in the metro area of Baton Rouge needs six tires and a Paul Bunyan-esque vehicle that is half truck bed.
Yeah, the guy in Wrangler jeans and a white T-shirt in the Ford commercials is gruff and handsome and manly — in a conventional sense — but you buying the truck in that commercial is falling for the most basic marketing ploy. You are still a scrawny redneck-looking boy trying to discreetly stuff tobacco in your mouth outside Coates.
If anything, your souped-up truck only emphasizes how small and measly you are when you have to hitch your leg up and jump in it.
Trucks scream excess — excess of gas, parking spots and the amount of space you think you should take up in public compared to everyone else. They are the epitome of unnecessary auto machinery.
A majority of students with oversized trucks most likely do not even use them as they are advertised. The majority of students could use a normal-sized car with a larger interior and smaller trunk size. Your kegs of beer and various drunken friends can only fit in the back of a regular car.
I will concede on some points. Yes, trucks are useful when you live on a farm or work in construction.
But campus is not a farm out in Walker, Louisiana. Most truck drivers come from some suburban areas that equate southern machismo with big, expensive trucks. Is your manliness also judged by the number of parking spots you hog or smaller cars you crush while trying to maneuver your truck?
Trucks have become the physical embodiment of manspreading on roads and parking lots. Guys, we are not good drivers. When you hog the road without being aware of the smaller cars around you, it is menacing and intimidating.
Sure, #notalltrucks are at fault, but a huge amount of them are obnoxious on the road and a nuisance to other drivers.
Don’t care what I think? The chance of a single vehicle crash resulting in death is about 50 percent higher in trucks, according to a report by Raise the Hammer. This statistic is even worse considering that the most aggressive, young, under educated male drivers are drawn to trucks, vehicles with the least stability and pose the most danger to other drivers.
Believe me, or continue to deny your obvious fragile masculinity. We all know what they say about compensation…
Ryan Thaxton is a 20-year-old mass communication sophomore from Monroe, Louisiana.