U-Haul trucks are the scariest thing on the road.
There are three reasons you should pay a lot of attention when you're driving anywhere near a U-Haul:
1. Most people are used to driving much smaller vehicles. Driving a large, boxy truck is challenging.
2. U-Haul does a terrible job maintaining their vehicles. They just barely keep them running. One could fail at any moment.
3. People driving U-Hauls are generally in the process of moving, which is stressful and distracting in its own right.
Put these together and you end up with someone driving a large, unfamiliar, poorly-maintained vehicle while stressed out and distracted. Give this person a wide berth.
This doesn't apply anywhere near as much to other truck rental companies. Most do a better job maintaining their vehicles and are, in part as a result of that, more expensive. That means that the people renting them did some research and chose to pay more for a better vehicle from a less recognized brand.
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3 comments:
"This doesn't apply anywhere near as much to other truck rental companies." I'm not sure that is a fair statement. I spent summers moving luggage from homes to summer camps and back again and we used mostly Ryder, but occasionally U-Haul. The maintenance on the trucks were about equal.
Having driven huge UHaul trucks, I should add that several of them (as of 2005) were stick shifts with cranky transmissions. During periods of peak demand, the automatics get picked first - leaving the manuals for those that may not be very comfortable with them.
I went with Budget for the move from MSN to Duluth, and that was frightening enough. But the vehicle was MUCH better than anything UHAUL could have offered. For the move down to Menomonie, we hired someone else to do it. Best $1,700 bucks ever spent.
I think if I ever move again, I'll likely do what you did and hire someone. Everyone I know who's done it says it's worth it.
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