Despite this, these pickup trucks offered great side impact protection, why is this?
Okay, so we all know that these days, SUVs and pickup trucks are becoming more popular than ever and are even seen as “lifestyle vehicles,” whatever that means. Hell, SUVs have become so popular that they spawned a new class of vehicles called crossovers, but are they as safe as sedans and hatchbacks? Well, apparently pickup trucks are not if you are a rear passenger.
So the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crashed four popular pickup trucks, and found that every single one of them offers strong protection in the event of a side impact. On the other hand, all four performed rather poorly in the updated moderate overlap front test. Why?
Moreover, introduced back in 1995, the original moderate overlap front test sees a vehicle striking a barrier at 40 mph (64 km/h) on the driver’s side. Launched in December 2022, the updated moderate overlap front test incorporates an adult-sized crash test dummy in the driver’s seat and a second crash test dummy seated out back.
In real-world crashes, rear passengers often “submarine,” as in the lap belt riding up onto the abdomen. This, in turn, increases the risk of abdominal injuries. Children and small women are even more susceptible to submarining due to their smaller physiques, which automakers rarely take into consideration while designing the rear restraint system.
To absolutely nobody’s surprise, all four pickup trucks rated poorly in regard to rear occupant restraints and kinematics. The overall ratings are marginal for the Toyota Tundra, poor for the Silverado 1500, poor for the Ford F-150, and poor for the Ram 1500. So are modern pickup trucks simply not advancing in terms of safety as time goes by?
Well, it is obvious that modern pickup trucks are infinitely safer in the event of a crash than older ones. From advancements in chassis and passenger cell design to automatic emergency braking and so forth, every type of vehicle in production today is to a certain extent safer than vehicles from 10 years ago. The real question is, is this enough?
Obviously if one wants to own a pickup truck as their daily driver, they will, plus, I have personally been preaching to deaf ears for the better half of 10 years now that sedans are superior yet the modern buyer still favours pickup trucks and SUVs. There is nothing wrong with this but keep in mind that SUVs and sedans are safer for rear passengers than a pickup truck will ever be.
We got all this from autoevolution and their full article is linked here. Thank you autoevolution for the information and images.
