were once easy to load with cargo thanks to . used to be so low, in fact, that you could just skip on up, or easily slide lumber and other cargo onto their flat surfaces, then skip back down without need for a . It was glorious.

This affects full-sizers, but have been particularly affected in recent years. Trucks like the and its sibling, the , Toyota Pickup and once offered absurdly easy loading and unloading. Lately, these trucks have strayed from their roots as utility vehicles. I guess I just want to know what happened to all the truck shorties. What happened to all those trucks that made loading bikes a breeze?

Now that trucks are all latent off-roaders, or are otherwise posturing to look the part, truck beds are unnecessarily taller than they used to be. While carmakers don’t often list flatbed heights in official specs, overall truck height and ground clearance can give us an idea of how taller beds are now, and of how much more effort it could take to load and unload cargo.

- Height: 64.3 inches; Ground Clearance: 6.7 inches. - Height: 70.7 - 73.2 inches (Ranger Tremor); Ground Clearance: 8.4 - 9.7 inches (Ranger Tremor). Height: 60.8 - 61.4 inches; Ground Clearance: 6.7 - 7.5 inches. - Height: 70.6 - 71.6 inches (Tacoma TRD Pro); Ground Clearance: 9.4 inches. - Height: 62 - 67.1 inches. Ground Clearance: 6.7 - 7.1 inches. - Height: 71.6 - 72.9 inches (Frontier Pro-4X); Ground Clearance: 9.0 - 9.8 inches (Frontier Pro-4X).

In the most extreme cases, some of these trucks have gotten 10 inches taller, and ground clearance at the rear has increased by up to three inches. That may not sound like much, but it makes a difference when repeatedly loading and unloading cargo, day in and day out. As in the case of working class trucks.

These changes come at the expense of the trucks’ usability. I’m all for ground clearance on trucks that are actually going to go off-road, but more ground clearance and taller heights are not ideal for trucks that’ll be regularly used to ferry cargo on public roads. I’d argue taller stances are less suited for road-going vehicles in general, given how height can impact comfort on the highway. I just miss the days of reasonably accessible truck beds, I guess. The heydays of the glorious Chevy S-10 or the shorty Mazda B-Series and Toyota Pickups.