Enforced upon inspection, and DOT cops (the buggers in the all black, unmarked fords with portable scales and enough tools and power to **** you for a long time) can and will pull people over and break out tape measures if they're having a bad day. Not common but not unheard of on crazy tall trucks.
Same with tint, it's a safety violation and you cannot drive the vehicle at all. (Red R rejected sticker)
You can get towed and impounded for a lifted truck, tinted windows, even a plate that isn't reflective enough.
"Public Safety" lol
Never used to be a problem when you could walk into midas with 60 bucks instead of 30 and walk out to your lifted, straight piped truck and put the sticker on yourself on the tinted windshield.
Now they film every inspection and do periodic check-ins on stations remotely. Cheaper than sting operations apparently.
MA has ridiculous laws about everything. Knives, trucks, cars, guns, liquor, you name it. Towns are even worse. They just slowly chip away at things on the fringe that don't affect too many people. The average idiot doesn't know, let alone care. If they hear about it in passing they'll just suck up the BS excuse that it's "public safety"
You'd expect more from the birthplace of the revolution.
100 percent illegal in ma (so I guess dually's are illegal?? lol)
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2017/10/19/540cmr6.pdf
I'd refer to the states actual laws posted online. Liftlaws.com is nice but won't get you out of a ticket (or worse). The data is also incomplete. Doesn't talk about track width laws, or the tire size formula and says there is no frame height regulation. Also doesn't address the 2"/formula inconsistency.
OP- That formula is capped now.
540 CMR 6.01 said:
The law reads very poorly. (Your tax dollars at work)
One part says 2", the next says formula. Most people I've talked to have taken it to mean abide by the formula unless the total is more than two inches.
As for new regulations- I used to have about 10 places I could get a "lick and stick" wink-and-nod-type inspection. Now I have maybe one. Stations are scared because anyone could be watching at any time.
If you can find a place to inspect you, and you're willing to take the risk, go for it. Nobody really knows yet how stringent they are on enforcing the laws (or how the law works). There used to be a million lifted truck around that got few tickets. I'm listening to the grapevine to see how hard they're coming down on people. My guess is 4 inches (especially on GM's, which are pretty low to start) will probably be fine, but you'll run into issues when you start getting into 6, 9, and taller lifts.
But like I said, the new inspections and the new rule are... new. Nobody really knows how hard they'll come down on it, and it may (will) vary town to town. There isn't the lifted truck scene here that is say, in florida or california, but there are a ton of lifted and modified trucks, and I haven't heard of a mass run on autozone to get mufflers, dpfs, egrs, stock springs, and lighter window tint.
