At a prior job, one of the company vehicles was a blue, late 80’s Dodge Ram truck. I affectionately did and continued to refer to as Blue (as in You’re My Boy Blue). I only had the justifiable need to use Blue about twice a month but that was more than enough to kindle a relationship. I love that truck and was sad to hear it was sold shortly after I left for another job. The only other truck I can remember loving more was my dad’s late 70’s two-tone cream and olive green Ford F100 XLT. The two-tone gave the truck a minty appearance from a distance.
Speaking of trucks like prior relationships may seem odd if you’re not from the South, but Southern girls and boys take this seriously. In an analysis of the results from the 1995 National Personal Transportation Study, one of the strongest predictors of whether you owned a truck was whether you lived in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, or Texas quickly followed by Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, or Tennessee. Of course, the only better predictor was if you lived in a Rocky Mountain state—I guess the South can’t win at everything. By 2012 (below), it looks like the South’s rightful place as the largest consumer of pickup trucks is dwindling.
Of course the nonregional patterns reflect something more important. The best predictor of household truck ownership was whether you lived rural and the worst was if the household made over $70,000 a year. Drivers of pickup trucks tended to be male with only high school or less than high school educations but working full time.But don’t think driving a truck for a Southerner is a matter of vanity. The best predictor of trucks usage was for work.
Truck photo by KGBKitchen on Flickr (CC)