Having a ball hitch in will absolutely benefit you if rear-ended. It will take so much of the impact that damage to your car will be minimal. I got rear ended in my Excursion by a sedan doing about 50mph while I was at a stop in bumper to bumper traffic. The sedan was totaled and all i had was a single dent on my bumper, my hitch was nearly inside the sedans engine block after slamming through its radiator. It will not hurt you in anyone other than smacking your shin into it, have no idea how you came up with the increased whiplash idea

 

There are zero crumple zones in a hitch = increased whiplash.
The front of the frame, pretty obvious where the crumple zone is. The rear, not so much. Put a hitch on, and there is none.

Check your local laws. It is illegal to keep the receiver ball/hitch in place without a trailer on.
Ever here about anyone getting a ticket? No.

Yes, I realize this is over 10 years old, just adding to it.

 

#3 is the reason I keep my hitch in... twice I've been rear ended buy small cars and drove away with no damage while they wait for a tow.

 

People leave hitch adapters in because they are too lazy to take them out and then make excuses for why they leave them in.

 

You're right the hitch doesn't have a crumble zone but you are being rear ended and the front of the car hitting you will crumble. I didn't have a lick of whiplash from getting hit. Also, South Florida has no laws about leaving hitches in, it is standard practice on trucks here

 

South Carolina has no law on the books that makes it illegal to leave your trailer ball / trailer hitch in the receiver.

 

The Tacoma forum is giant bag of idiots. Save perhaps the mid 10s Nissan Altima there are fewer if any vehicles that have less intelligent owners. You should feel bad for copy pasting anything from that dump let alone a bunch of marketing ****.

You cannot apply statistical averages to individual situations. Some 20% risk of injury state taken from the general population isn't going to apply to a forum where everyone drives an F-series that already has basically no shock absorption in the bumper to begin with. Nobody here is losing much by making the other vehicle crumple more. Yes, having a bumper that can move and absorb energy is a good thing. Yes letting the other vehicle go under is a good thing.

Realistically there's nothing in the front of a passenger car for a hitch to grab onto that's really capable of bending a truck frame unless it gets so deep in it gets into the engine and stuff. You're talking 20+mph impact at that point.

Chrysler put hitches on a ton of Grand Cherokees for free as part of a "fuel tank could get punctured" recall. If they thought whiplash injuries would increase enough to matter they wouldn't have done it. The pictured vehicle was either not in the collision that is being portrayed or is not representative of typical results. The next most realistic consideration after straight lying for marketing reasons would be rust.


I've long maintained that we could improve society more by lining up and shooting people to tell cautionary tales of speculative lawsuits that never actually resulted in anything more than we could by lining up and shooting people who bring BS lawsuits.

 

There's a difference between "product actually does something" and "product enables one lying POS new yorker to deny a completely baseless injury claim made by another POS new yorker". The products probably work, somewhat, but you gotta remember these are government employees and employers we're talking about here. Gotta take it with a grain of salt.

 

It makes a decent step.

 

thats why I leave mine in. The floor of my expedition is about 40” off the ground and the top of the rear bumper isn’t a ton lower. Even for my 36” inseam, at 47 years old, I kind of need a step to get back out even if I managed to get in without it.

 

Wow a 10 year old thread dug up from the grave!

Wonder how many of these things were sold and what are the statistics of them actually helping?

 

Damn.... Mine barely sticks out far enough to penetrate the plastic bumper on most cars these days (been rear ended twice with it in). Yours must stick out about 3-4' to penetrate an engine block.