Abigail Shimniok

Giving one’s vehicle a lift can provide some great benefits. It can provide advantages towards towing heavier loads, enhances the vehicle’s ability to drive over rough terrain and provides more convenient access to its underside. Lifted vehicles, typically trucks, place much more danger onto the roadways than other vehicles.
The most obvious of these dangers is, when lifted, obstacles can become partially or entirely obscured. Obstacles of course include but are not limited to animals, children, debris, elderly people and even some smaller cars.
Trucks and SUVs already pose a danger to pedestrians, with an increase from 22% to 44% of pedestrian accidents involving higher-seated vehicles since the 1980s. Such vehicles are two to three times more likely to kill pedestrians than smaller vehicles.
Trucks have become increasingly taller as time goes on, with machines that protect only those inside and pose a danger to those outside. And this refers to SUVs and trucks in their default form. Once a lift is introduced to the equation, the issue of sight becomes exacerbated beyond its already worrying state, and the safety of those inside too becomes put into question.
With a lifted vehicle, the center of gravity is lifted higher into the air. This causes the vehicle to have a significantly higher probability of rolling over, injuring or possibly killing the parties inside and most likely throwing any load contained in the truck bed onto the active road.
The proposed benefit of lifted vehicles having better handling on rough terrain is then put into question, as rough terrain naturally causes a vehicle, no matter how good, to shift around. With a lifted vehicle, this would cause its tendency to tip over to worsen, effectively making the benefit of better handling moot unless one was willing to throw caution to the wind. Aside from towing capabilities and general cosmetics, the lifting of a vehicle provides danger to just about every party involved.
This is not to say that vehicles such as trucks should be banned, but rather they should be better regulated. Mass is important as it allows for greater cushioning during crashes, but when it comes to lifts, they only pose a danger to everyone around and therefore should be banned outside of commercial use.
If the vehicle is not being used to constantly tow loads, then they serve no purpose other than vanity. If it is the truck bed that consumers value, there are many ways of manufacturing trucks that allow for the same amount of truck bed-room while also allowing for safer travel not just for those around, but those inside the vehicle as well.