4 popular pickup trucks fall short on latest safety test
Four large pickups offer strong protection in side crashes but fall short when it comes to protecting passengers in the back seat.
The Ram 1500 crew cab, Ford F-150 crew cab and Toyota Tundra crew cab earn good ratings in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's updated side crash test, while the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 crew cab is rated acceptable. However, in the updated moderate overlap front crash test, which now emphasizes back seat safety, only the Tundra manages a marginal rating. The F-150, Ram 1500 and Silverado are rated poor.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) launched the updated moderate overlap front test last year after research showed that in newer vehicles the risk of a fatal injury is now higher for belted occupants in the second row than for those in front. This is not because the second row has become less safe. Rather, the front seat has become safer because of improved airbags and advanced seat belts that are rarely available in the back.
Even with these developments, the back seat remains the safest place for children, who can be injured by an inflating front airbag, and the rating does not apply to children secured properly in child safety seats.
In the updated test, a second dummy is positioned in the second row behind the driver. The driver dummy is the size of an average adult man. The rear dummy is the size of a small woman or 12-year-old child. IIHS researchers also developed new metrics that focus on the injuries most frequently seen in back seat passengers.
The updated side test was introduced to address higher-speed crashes that are still causing fatalities, even in vehicles that excelled in the original evaluation. Like its predecessor, the updated test uses two dummies, a driver and a rear passenger. However, it uses a heavier barrier traveling at a higher speed to simulate the striking vehicle. The updated test replaced the original in the criteria for the TOP SAFETY PICK awards in 2023.
In this test, the good-rated F-150, Ram 1500 and Tundra provided solid protection in front and back, though the occupant compartment of the F-150 was compromised slightly by the impact. There was an elevated risk of chest injury to the rear passenger in the acceptable-rated Silverado.
