Crash test video ‘should make you think twice’ about riding in truck beds, NC cops say

Police say a video circulating online makes a pretty strong case for why people should ride inside the cab of a pickup truck rather than in the bed.

The clip shows crash test dummies being ejected out of the bed of a truck that is sitting still when rammed from behind by a vehicle traveling 56 mph. One of the bodies is thrown so high that it leaves the video frame.

The video was originally posted to the N.C. Governor's Highway Safety Program Facebook page at the start of a Click It or Ticket campaign in May.

The Kitty Hawk Police Department reposted a zoomed-in, slow-motion version of the crash video on Thursday. It was viewed more than 300,000 times by Saturday.

“It should make you think twice before climbing in that truck bed next time,” the department wrote.

Though riding in the bedd of trucks is legal in North Carolina for people 16 or older — and in some circumstances legal for people younger than 16 — the Kitty Hawk department advised against it.

“We highly recommend that the safest place for people to travel is in the cab of any vehicle and in the appropriate restraint based on age and weight,” the department wrote in another post.

The law on riding in truck beds is similar in South Carolina's, but the cutoff age is 15.

Twenty states do not have laws on riding in beds or cargo areas of pickup trucks, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute.

This story was originally published June 30, 2018 at 1:54 PM.