Air carrier pilot reported while taxing to the gate they had to take evasive action to avoid a vehicle driving across the protected gate area. After yielding to the vehicle the flight crew taxied into the gate.

Narrative

We were in the ramp area following another commercial aircraft who was parking at the gate. After he parked we had to wait on the taxi line parallel to the lead in line because 4 vehicles had piled up behind him on the access road in front of our gate. As the line began to move another vehicle came in behind and two more vehicles came from the other direction on the access road. By this time we had been sitting there for at least two minutes waiting for the traffic jam to clear up. Once it was finally clear I began my left turn to taxi to the gate. Approximately halfway through the turn the FO called for me to stop and I looked right and there was a pickup truck coming from all the way across the taxiway to our right running across our nose at a diagonal from the taxiway. He was going about 25 miles per hour and continued to drive across our nose as if we weren't even there. I stopped the aircraft; set the parking brake and called Ops to inform them of the truck. Then we taxied into the gate.This truck came from behind our wingline as we were in a left hand turn and ran across our nose. It was as if he was depending on us to avoid him. DFW is a hazardous place to taxi anyway; but this driver definitely put our lookout to the test by coming from a completely unexpected direction outside any protection area on the ramp.Every time I go through there it seems that I have to wait for multiple vehicles on the access road to cross through my parking area. The driving culture at DFW is very aggressive and needs to be adjusted. In DFW I shouldn't have to start my turn into the parking area and hope everyone stops. For the truck that drove across my nose; he's in the movement area of the ramp and should have to be on Ramp Tower frequency to make a movement across the taxiway like that. The fact that he didn't stop is concerning. It tells me the drivers in DFW are filtering aircraft our to their scan.