When you think pickup trucks, you usually think of a big, tough vehicle, right? Wouldn’t it make sense that a big truck would also be a safe vehicle? In most respects that'd be true, but only one truck recieved a Top Safety Pick rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). IIHS awarded its Top Safety Pick rating to only the Ford F-150. The F-150 was awarded Top Safety Pick in both SuperCrew configuration and SuperCab configurations, receiving high marks for all crash tests.
Most other trucks matched the F-150 in all areas but the front “small overlap” crash test. This is a test that is designed to replicate a collision to the front corner of a vehicle. In this test, the vehicle travels at 40 mph towards a 5-foot-tall barrier. Upon impact, the IIHS can determine how safe the vehicle is for passengers from this common accident via the use of a crash test dummy sitting in the driver's seat.
While the F-150 received a “good” rating in this category, all other trucks received an “acceptable” or “marginal” rating, with the majority of the competition receiving the latter. The good news is that not a single truck recieved ratings below “marginal."
Some of the competitors were unhappy with the results. FCA stated that no single test can truly determine “real-world safety.” While we have to agree with the company, we also note that the IIHS’s test is designed to reflect real-world scenarios and, though imperfect, these tests are important gauges for a vehicle’s overall safety.
In previous years, the F-150 hasn’t managed to secure a Top Safety Pick rating for its SuperCab configuration. Ford purposefully made changes to the structure of its SuperCab version of its venerable pickup to make it as safe as the crew cab version. It appears that these changes have paid off.
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