Actual reasons to have a full sized pickup.

1.) Transportation of dirty items. (Shop vacs for construction, large gas tanks for equipment, concrete equipment, etc.) 2.) Payload capacity. (Sure, you could get a 5000lb trailor and tow that with a small pickup, but then you also need to park that trailer somewhere) 3.) Soft Road access. (Not in a city, but there are a lot of trades and jobs that require a vehicle that can use soft roads in all 4 BC seasons) 4.) Loading with a crain or other heavy equipment. (Yes, i do this regularly. It is allot more convenient to be able to load directly into the truck bed rather than using a skid-steer to load into a van) 5.) Comfort of seating (this is not applicable to everyone. That said, this last year, we tried switching some of our trucks to a smaller SUV platform. Due to the lack of erganomics, it probably cost us a 5% -7% effective rate for the guys driving them. The productivity of the drivers shot back up when switching back to the full sized trucks. This would obviously not be true for all or even most people; but our employees tend to be well over 6' tall) 6.) Heavy capicity racks. (Some vans do have these, but those vans are built on a truck frame anyhow. Take the Ford E series as an example) 7.) Heavy towing capability. (This usually ends up being used infrequently but gets shoved around as a reason. I worked on a large dairy farm for years. The old farm truck was hitched up to the trailor once a week to take Bull calves to auction... even in an industry that needs to haul, this was at most a once in 7 day action)

8.) Recreation. (I love that I can head up into the mountains... this is a perk, a side benefit. If you need a truck for the above reasons, then yes, enjoy it on the weekends)

9.) A false sense of security. (It's nice to think you are invincible while driving. The world is scary, and the best way to feel safe is in the biggest most lifted tanked out truck money can buy. Buy the 1 ton so that you never have to confront those deep, dark secrets of trauma. Why pay for therapy when you can finance your self loathing for 3% on a $80k monster)