First Pickup Trucks Crash-Tested by NHTSA Under New 5-Star Safety Rating System

[SVTOffroad News Bot]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released the results for the first batch of pickup trucks crash-tested using the federal agency’s recently overhauled 5-star rating system.

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[Droid]

I'm not a Dodge fan, but this smells like horse****. The Ram had 5 star safety ratings from the NHTSA and a "Good" rating from the IIHS (whose test is sometimes regarded as overly brutal) in frontal tests. Now the NHTSA blesses it with a two-star rating under its new system.

There had better be a hell of a lot of good science backing up these new criteria, and the article makes no attempt to explain it. Quite a few safety agencies have come up with safety tests that are just plain idiotic and not based on what really happens in a crash (e.g., recent Snell helmet ratings prior to Snell 2010). I wonder if the NHTSA did their homework on this update, or if they simply ramped up all the criteria arbitrarily.

I'm still bothered by the fact that all these safety agencies only rate vehicles against their own mass, which is only valid for single vehicle accidents. Small cars should also be tested against the energy of a collision with a standard size vehicle.

 

[MagicMtnDan]

If the government's involved then there's probably a lot of inefficiencies involved in the testing. That said, the test, whatever it is, is the same for all vehicles and they're tested equally. And the results of this test, in brief, say that the Tacoma is safer than the Ram and neither of them got the highest ratings...

 

[GR8PMKN]

A few years ago I was involved in a crash test between my F-350 and a 1/2 Chevy photos show the results. Big Fords do protect occupants my wife and I walked away without any damage. Here is the setup I was stopped at the scene of an accident on a freeway. Flashers were on and my truck was on the shoulder. The Chevy hit the rear of my truck at an estimated 70mph the report said. The driver was looking at something on the other side of the road. In the one shot of the chevy you can see my truck setting behind it. After the impact I backed my truck out of the middle lanes and ended up behind the chevy.

My truck at my brothers house a couple of miles from the accident. I drove it there sideways.

The Chevy that hit me, the driver had some cuts but luckily for him was not wearing a seatbelt and it allowed him to be ejected from his truck. The dash in his truck was pushed back into his front seat.

My F-350 after $29,000.00 worth of insurance work. The Original estimate was for $17,000 but they kept finding things not on the original estimate. Should have been a total loss for insurance their mistake.

 

[BigJ]

Wow! $29g's... that's insane. Truck sure does look good though.

 

[Droid]

From what I've seen of crash tests, equal doesn't even begin to suggest fair.

As an example, the pre-2010 Snell motorcycle helmet test was subjecting helmets to a huge acceleration that didn't approximate what happens in the real world. It caused helmet designs which wanted the Snell rating to be less deformable and thus offering less protection for impacts one can actually survive.

Then of course there was the original mandate for airbags that provided safety for unbelted passengers as a metric, for only the cost of killing women and children. Apparently that's an acceptable loss to save the lives of the truly stupid.