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Nothing better thumbs US noses at life’s annoyances than the nation’s vehicle fleet.
We are firmly in the season for that cutest of American images, the Christmas tree being driven home tied on the top of a car or, increasingly, in the back of a pick-up truck. This must be a satisfying day for all those Americans who nowadays drive “full-size” pick-ups but 364 days a year have nothing to put in them. For one day in December, they can pat themselves on the back and say, “Thank goodness we bought this huge truck. What would we have done without it?”
Many pick-ups are so big that I keep intending, but forgetting, to wait in the supermarket car park to see how people get into them. Is there a pull-down ladder?
Or do you swing yourself, ape-like, in a gracious arc through the air like a pole vaulter without the pole. (So not like a pole-vaulter, actually.) Perhaps monster pick-ups are best entered with a running jump.
Once, working at KiwiRail, I climbed into the cab of a locomotive. There were hand holds to pull yourself up, right, left, right, left. Maybe there are some on these vehicles. too. I imagine the view from a full-size pick-up is almost as good as from a locomotive, so long as your long-distance vision allows you to see beyond the pick-up’s bonnet.
It can probably be assumed that unless you are driving steers around your ranch in Montana, or a tonne of wheat on your farm in Kansas, there is little reason for most Americans to own a monster ute. But own them they do. Sedans, once the symbol of US wealth and consumerism, are becoming noticeable for their scarcity.
For some owners, full-size pick-ups seem to fulfil a psychological rather than practical need. About the only thing that comes as close to saying “I really don’t care” as the parka worn by First Lady Melania Trump, which actually had the words “I really don’t care, do u?” painted on the back, is a full-size pick-up.
Merely by existing, it says, “I really don’t care about global warming.” It says, “I really don’t care about my fuel bill.” And it says, “I will not even notice if I run over that cyclist or your donkey and, by the way, I really don’t care about cyclists, or donkeys.” That is, admittedly, quite a lot for a pick-up to say, but as we know, Americans are articulate. It rubs off on their vehicles.
Afriend who works in health and safety in New Zealand has shared with me her concerns that the French “gilets jaunes” or jaundiced vests (my translation) who are busy vandalising cities have insufficient workplace protection. They are spending their days committing arson, destroying public and private property and using the detritus as missiles.
And as they operate in this dangerous environment, their only protection is a flimsy highvis vest each. Further, the vests make them easy targets should the police turn water cannons on them, which, presumably, most of France hopes they do.
Perhaps the French, who have never been known for their productivity, will shut the protests down until the participants are provided with a higher level of protection or better working conditions, not to mention protection from illegal immigrants taking their jobs. Or maybe there will not be time for that.
“We have chopped off heads for less than this,” a jaundiced vest member scrawled on the Arc de Triomphe. In the finest spirit of égalité and fraternité, many French people doubtless feel the same way, while imagining different victims.
Merely by existing, it says, “I really don’t care about global warming.”