Ask TFLtruck: Which Half-Ton Pickup Truck Has the Best Driver Visibility?

toyota tacoma
Toyota Tacoma (image credit: Toyota)

Which half-ton (1500-series) pickup truck has the best driver visibility? TFLtruck recently received this question from Carter.

I will be purchasing a truck this coming year, and TFL has really helped narrow the choices. By curiosity, has TFL compared trucks based on the visual approach angles?  This is a concern for shorter divers. My family has five members, and my Toyota Tacoma days are over, and these half-ton full size trucks keep getting bigger. I test drove a 2018 F150 today and felt very blinded by the larger hood and deeper seat, (coming from a 2003 f150, and Tacoma prior to that). Field of view is important, especially off-road, might the TFL team have any thoughts on half-ton models with best approach view? Thanks again for the awesome site. Can’t wait to see your reviews from Detroit. My purchasing is hinged on the new Chevy and Ram redesigns.

This is an interesting question and one that TFLtruck will be doing more specific evaluations of. We can confirm that Ford and GM trucks a lower driver siting position than other trucks, but the seats can be adjusted up on most trucks. We (at TFLtruck) are mostly tall, between 6’1” and 6’3”. We often set the driver seat on its lowest setting.

Ford has one of the best views from the driver’s position due to a lower kink in the side windows. The front view is one of the better ones as well. We have also noticed that Ram 1500 and Nissan Titan have good forward visibility. We cannot answer this question in a comprehensive way at this time, because we do not have enough measurements.  We will do more testing of this soon.

What do you guys think? Which half-ton pickup truck offers the best driver visibility?

We take a 2017 Ram 1500 4×4 Sport up the Gold Mine Hill off-road trail in this comparison. The truck offered good overall driver view to negotiate the tight trail.