The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently performed side crash tests for the first time on small pickups. Their sampling included the Toyota Tacoma, Dodge Dakota, Ford Ranger, Nissan Frontier and Chevy Colorado. The results were published today and they indicate that small pickup owners might want to start wearing helmets while driving.
The IIHS has only three grades for its crash tests: Good, Marginal and Poor. The Dakota, Ranger and Frontier all earned Marginal ratings, while the Colorado could only muster a Poor rating due in part to the moving barrier actually coming in contact with the dummy's head during the simulated crash. The Tacoma, however, was the only vehicle to earn a Good rating. It was also the only small truck tested with side air bags, which are an option for 2008 but will be standard equipment on 2009 Tacomas.
If side airbags are an option, the IIHS will, as a rule, test a vehicle without them unless an automaker wants to rerun the crash test with a model that has side airbags and is willing to pay for the cost of the vehicle that's crashed. Not unsurprisingly, the archaic Ranger was the only small pickup that doesn't offer side airbags at all, though it was surprising that none of the other automakers requested their models be tested with side airbags. The IIHS also tells us that small pickups have the highest driver death rates of any vehicles on the road, which makes these tests all the more significant.
It's not a surprise that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) would be backing a proposal that has the potential to lower the amount of damage vehicles sustain in crashes, and therefore lead to less costly repairs for insurers. What is surprising is the NHTSA's stubborn attitude about accepting outside suggestions. The proposal is simple enough; the IIHS recommends that trucks and cars use the same bumper standards for greater crash compatibility. Being cynical and following the money does lead one back to the fact that such a change would save the insurance industry a large sum, but so what? Saving the insurance industry money saves us poor saps a few nickels, too – or the rates continue to be just as expensive while the corporate robber barons pocket the increased profits. NHTSA has heard this argument before, rejecting petitions for porting the car bumper standard to light trucks in both 1984 and 1991. The IIHS is hoping that this time around, the fact that it's an organization proposing the change, and their new research, will sway the regulatory body in a more favorable direction. The IIHS used the Ford Explorer and its more car-compatible bumpers to demonstrate in tests that both vehicles in a crash would sustain less damage without exacting any penalty in usefulness or capability. NHTSA is already on the case of vehicle compatibility in a broad sense, and will likely try to roll any bumper-centric work into that effort. It would seem like a no-brainer to have cars and light trucks with bumpers that match up, but it's taken the past century of automotive production and dependence to get the idea any kind of traction. With that kind of glacial pace, we should start petitioning now in anticipation of a super-tight oil supply and incoming waves of sub-A class vehicles. We sure wouldn't want to get mauled by an Explorer on our way to get milk and bread in our Nano in 2030.
