North Carolina Passes Bill to Ban the Carolina Squat
I will admit, I have done some dumb things to my modes of transportation during my driving career. I have put Christmas lights in a car, a couch in my van, even all the speakers I could squeeze in the trunk of a car. The need to modify a vehicle is something some of us just feel the need to do, to be different and make something our own.
In the modified vehicle world, people have their own tastes. Sometimes, those tastes aren't shared with the rest of the community. What 90% of the population in the community thinks is dumb, there's always that 10% who just think it is the bee's knees. That, dear reader, is where the Carolina Squat comes in.
The Cali Lean, or Tennessee Tilt, is a modification to a truck where the front suspension is lifted and the back is either left alone or lowered. Some say it's to mimic desert racing trucks that do this, but I still stand by the fact that someone couldn't afford the entire lift and just made it a trend.
The state of North Carolina has been working on a bill to ban the tilted trucks in the state. The bill has passed through the House and is headed on to the Senate. The bill restricts modifying the suspension of a private automobile specifically from being lifted more than three inches over factory height in the front or lowered more than two inches from factory height in the rear. The state received over 70,000 signatures to help solidify the House to pass this new bill to the Senate.
They're not banning it because it looks awful. The law is being put in to place because of the safety factor. As you raise the front and lower the rear, driver visibility becomes less on the street and more toward the sky. The state has seen a rise in accidents related to the squatted vehicles, and one representative of South Carolina had a firsthand experience with an accident involving one of them. If the bill passes the Senate, it could go into effect as soon as December 1 of this year.