Last week I got the opportunity to drive a U-Haul van for the very first time. For work they needed someone to bring a bunch of equipment from main campus to the auxillary campus downtown. I happily volunteered, thinking it would be a nice change of pace from the monotony of the school semester. Great chance to exercise, too. Thankfully, there’s a U-Haul rental location a few blocks from campus. Which makes sense when you think of all the profits to be made from undergrads hauling their stuff to and from the dorms.
I was adamant in not wanting to drive the typical U-Haul box truck: looks too wide and super unwieldy to drive. The cargo vans I was okay with, though that would still be somewhat challenging coming from a small two-door coupe. I might as well be driving a bus. Worse, the U-Haul cargo vans do not have a back-up camera! At least the one I got - a Chevy Express - didn’t! No parking sensors either. It’s kind of stupid: when it’s filled to the brim with cargo, you literally cannot see out the rearview mirror.
Obviously, we made a point to not put any boxes above the driver sight-line towards the rear.
It is surprisingly calming to be driving such a big and slow vehicle. It’s one of the tardiest thing on the road, so I just stick to the slow lanes and mind my own business. No need to stress about getting ahead or worry about holding somebody up behind me - there’s nothing I can do about it! It seems other drivers treat me better as well, because they understand the big van is only ever going to go so quickly. It’s not like I’m the Toyota Prius going slowly on the left-most highway lane. Those are objectively the worse.
Of course, driving is one thing; parking is an entirely different matter. I’m glad I was able to simply pull up to the curb and unload. Any sort of maneuvering in a parking lot (downtown San Francisco parking lots are notoriously tight) would have been disastrous for my nerves. Having a whole normal car’s length worth of van behind me is a very atypical experience, to say the least. So is having to crane my neck and look backwards whilst reversing!
If my current career trajectory ever falls apart, I think can take up long haul trucking as an alternative. One drive in a U-Haul van certainly counts as a successful tryout, right?
The glorious.