Q&A - Jacked up Trucks
Just wondering if you could fill me in on the rules of the road regarding jacked up trucks. I'm often blinded by headlights from those trucks and I would not want to get in a head on with one of them as their bumper is about head high for me. Are there regulations concerning bumper height ? I'm thinking there are and if so it doesn't seem to me to be enforced.
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Answer
Yes, there are rules for jacked up (and lowered) vehicles.
In order to pass inspection, the vehicle must pass criteria set out in the Vehicle Inspection Manual. This would include things like headlamp height, bumper height, steering and other components commonly modified during the raising/lowering of the vehicle.
Not all modified vehicles are presented for inspection by their owners as required by law. It is then up to police to enforce the inspection. Sometimes this can be quite interesting as the owner knows that the vehicle will not pass inspection and resists the inspection order. Occasionally it comes down to seizing the vehicle licence and number plates and calling a tow truck. ICBC will not re-issue plates until the vehicle passes inspection.
FYI, the inspection manual calls for rejection on pickup trucks under 4,500 kg GVW if lowest part of the truck bumper is higher than 750 mm (29.5 in.) from the ground as measured to OEM bumper location.
What annoys me ...
... is that up until 1984 or thereabouts, everybody in BC had to put their vehicle through a mandatory Government Inspection every year (twice as often for commercial vehicles). If your vehicle didn't pass, you couldn't insure it.
Cost was stupendous, like $25 or something (that was irony, there). It ensured that vehicles were mechanically sound, despite how little maintenance they might receive from their owners, and it kept qualified mechanics employed in a provincially run system that paid for itself.
Although vehicles have improved in every aspect since then, so far as mechanical reliability is concerned, the number of them that you see on the road with headlights out, other faulty lighting, misalignment causing premature tire wear, or wiped out wipers seems to be greater than ever.
But hey, thanks to some repurposing of the old inspection facilities, at least we don't have to put up with exhaust pollution here in the lower mainland - now we have to go the Gulf Islands or the Interior to remember the smell of unburnt hydrocarbons ...