There were no top “Good” scores for the Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, Jeep Gladiator, Nissan Frontier, or Toyota Tacoma. In the new test, a dummy is put in the seat behind the driver. This is to try to get car companies to make the back seats safer. The IIHS’s most recent crash test results show that mid-size trucks have difficulty keeping backseat passengers safe in front-end crashes. The five test pickups were the Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, Jeep Gladiator, Nissan Frontier, and Toyota Tacoma. None of them got the top “Good” grade, though. A new IIHS paper found the same results for small passenger cars. There are four types of safety scores from the IIHS. Acceptable, Marginal, and Poor are the following best ratings after Good. The Frontier did better than the other four pickups because it got an Acceptable grade. Poor scores were given to the Colorado, Gladiator, and Tacoma, while the Ranger got a Marginal. The poor ratings of the mid-size car segment are because the back seats are less safe than the front seats. IIHS president David Harkey said “the common problem was that the head of the rear passenger dummy came dangerously close to the front seatback.” “Chest injuries or neck were measurable on the dummies,” the authors write. These considerations suggest upgrading the rear seatbelts to a higher standard. The IIHS did a more thorough test, which included putting a dummy in the driver’s seat. The doll in the back seat is about the size of a small woman or a child 12 years old. The form in the front seat is about the size of an average adult man. According to the study from the IIHS, researchers also made new measurements focusing on the injuries that backseat passengers report most often. During the expanded test, the head of the rear dummy could touch the back of the front seat in the Colorado, Frontier, Ranger, and Tacoma. The back Ranger dummy did something called “submarining,” which lets the seatbelt move up from the pelvis to the belly and increases the risk of internal injuries. According to the assessment, the Colorado, Gladiator, and Tacoma all got low ratings and had a moderate risk of neck and chest injuries. In contrast, the Ranger had an average rating and had a reasonable chance of chest injuries.
