Pickup Truck Safety Review

Manufacturers of Pickup trucks and SUVs have been working hard to make them safer in a crash. This is great news for anyone intending to purchase a new vehicle in the future. The following information has been provided by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

ARLINGTON, Va. - Dramatic improvements to SUVs and pickup trucks have decreased the number of deadly crashes.

Today's SUVs and pickups pose far less risk to people in cars and minivans than previous generations, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows. Until recently, SUVs and pickups were more likely than cars or minivans of the same weight to be involved in crashes that killed occupants of other cars or minivans. That's no longer the case for SUVs, and for pickups the higher risk is much less pronounced than it had been.

For example, among 1-4-year-old vehicles weighing 3,000-3,499 pounds, SUVs were involved in crashes that killed car/minivan occupants at a rate of 44 deaths per million registered vehicle years in 2000-01. That rate dropped by nearly two-thirds to 16 in 2008-09. In comparison, cars and minivans in the same weight category were involved in the deaths of other car/minivan occupants at a slightly higher rate of 17 per million in 2008-09.

The researchers attribute much of the change to two things: improved crash protection in the cars and minivans, thanks to side airbags and stronger structures, and newer designs of SUVs and pickups that align their front-end energy-absorbing structures with those of cars.

Lifesaving cooperation

The more compatible designs are the result of efforts by automakers, the government, and the Institute to address the problem of mismatched vehicles.

"By working together, the automakers got life-saving changes done quickly," says Joe Nolan, the Institute's chief administrative officer and a co-author of the new study. "The new designs have made a big difference on the road."

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