‘Expensive jump scare.’
There’s road-ready and road-safe, and the two don’t always mean the same thing. One TikTok video recently posted by creator Ace.dusted (@ace.dusted) illustrated that driving a huge lifted truck is part patience, part vibes.
In the video, which has been viewed over 1.2 million times, a San Diego man looks like he’s stopped behind a white sedan. But as the video keeps rolling, and the traffic light turns green, another, blue vehicle seemingly emerges from under the truck.
What viewers are seeing is a small optical illusion: the truck Ace is driving is so tall that it obscures the vehicle just ahead of it.
Commenters are quick to jump on the probable safety hazard this might pose. The first comment, from Kaila (@ksecretspamio), is simple: just a photo of the lifted Chevy Silverado that ran over a $250,000 Lamborghini in a Florida parking lot.
While another user comments, “This should not be a flex. It’s a hazard.”
Someone else chimes in with an eye towards pedestrian safety: “Now imagine a child running… you can’t see [expletive].”
Then there’s an entire contingent who think that lifted trucks shouldn’t be on the road. Spiderdamn (@banoffeepi) says, “I genuinely believe big [expletive] trucks shouldn’t be road legal. They can’t even fit in a parking space.”
There’s an old truism: “The higher you are, the harder you fall.” When it comes to lifted vehicles, there are different types of lifts that accomplish different things, even as they do make a truck “taller.”
Kelley Blue Book explains that there are body lift kits and suspension lift kits. Typically, “the simplest and most affordable path to lifting a truck is with a body lift kit,” that source reports. A more versatile, but also more expensive, option is the suspension lift kit. They can raise a vehicle by a foot or more.
However, an ambitious truck owner might run into bigger issues than which lifting method to use. Some community HOAs have rules against lifted trucks. Other times, individual states have regulations about bumper and headlight height. So, if you go too big, you might be towing that truck home. Another thing to consider is gas mileage: bigger wheels mean bigger fuel bills.
Finally, as notably seen in the Chevy versus Lamborghini fiasco, parking can be a real issue.
When it comes to safety, lifted trucks need special consideration as well. A lifted vehicle is more prone to rolling in tight-turn situations (consider the original Ford Bronco II’s warning label). Also, there are (as illustrated) problems with visibility and potential problems with stopping. The added weight of bigger tires can make them harder to stop and require more distance to stop.
Because different states have different rules, the site Lift Laws has the different regulations each state has in place. That resource notes, “As one would expect, California has some of the most restrictive vehicle modification laws in the country. Suspension lifts are limited by California’s frame height law and body lifts are limited to five inches.”
Ace is driving in California, and one would hope his vehicle is road-legal. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not terrifying on the road.
Motor1 reached out to Ace via TikTok direct message and with a comment on the post. We’ll update this if he responds.
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