South Carolina officially banned the so-called “Carolina Squat” last year in an attempt to put an end to the dangerous practice of lifting the front end of a truck while leaving the rear at least mostly stock. For the first six months of the ban, though, lawmakers decided to be gracious and only give out warnings. Next month that six-month grace period is up, meaning owners who continue to drive illegally modified trucks will begin getting actual tickets.
More specifically, drivers will be ticketed if their front fender is at least four inches higher than their rear fender. So if you want to throw a three-inch lift onto the front of your Chevrolet Silverado, lawmakers in the state that puts mustard on barbecue are totally OK with that. It’s only when you hit the four-inch mark that the penalties will start rolling in.
The penalty is pretty low for your first ticket, coming in at only $100. Neither the second nor third offense will earn you much of a fine, either, coming in at $200 and $300 respectively. If, after three tickets, someone still refuses to fix their truck, their license will be suspended. You’d think that with a six-month grace period, lawmakers would come down more harshly on people who continue to insist on breaking the law, but at least this particular law has some teeth now.
Those who like the look will insist this is just government overreach taking away their freedoms, but there’s nothing in the law that says you can’t throw a 12-inch lift on the front of a Silverado that you exclusively drive on private land. It only applies if you want to drive your truck on public roads where the safety of other drivers comes into play. There, the lifted front end is known to blind other drivers, as well as create a massive blind spot in front of the truck, making them a danger to anyone outside the truck, including pedestrians.
While we’d love it if the fines were higher, for the sake of everyone else on or near the road, we’re still happy to see South Carolina finally crack down on dangerous modifications. Will losing their license convince these owners to fix their trucks? That remains to be seen. If they’re caught driving on a suspended license, though, they could actually face jail time, so it might actually end up being effective. If it’s actually enforced, that is.
H/T: CarBuzz