Consumers have a number of reasons to love pickups: unrivaled utility, roominess, their now-extravagant creature comforts.
But there's another reason: They've become some of the safest vehicles on the road.
Crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have violently shown just how safe the latest pickups have become, even compared with trucks from only a few years ago.
Pickups already had a physics advantage in traffic because of their mass, especially when interacting with smaller, lighter vehicles. But changes to the frames and other structural members of the latest pickups — the stuff most consumers neither see nor think about until after they've hit something — are making pickup drivers and passengers safer.
'Definitely improving'
"Pickup trucks are definitely improving," said Becky Mueller, a senior research engineer with IIHS and the lead engineer for small overlap testing on the driver and passenger side. "When we first started testing, everybody was in the 'marginal' or 'poor' rating, but it's a challenge for automakers because these vehicles are so big and their passenger compartments are so concentrated."
The biggest proof of their progress is visible in photos documenting the results of the IIHS small overlap crash testing of the 2019 Ram 1500 — released this month — along with testing of the Ford F-150, Nissan Titan and Toyota Tundra. Testing on General Motors' redesigned full-size pickups is to be done this month, IIHS spokesman Russ Rader said.
Small overlap crash testing smashes the vehicle into a concrete abutment that only contacts a portion of the front end, about the width of the front wheel. Four ratings are possible: "good," "acceptable," "marginal" and "poor."
The test — implemented in 2012 to simulate striking a fixed object such as a utility pole — has been difficult for many automakers, forcing them to make reinforcements to keep front wheels from protruding into the passenger cabin.
Mueller said larger vehicles face a greater challenge in crash testing because the test simulates striking a vehicle of similar size and shape. "We know that being in a bigger vehicle, like a pickup, you're inherently in a safer vehicle because you tend to win against smaller objects and vehicles around you."
Wheel blockers
In 2015, Ford solved this problem by incorporating steel horns — known by most engineers as wheel blockers — onto the frame of some F-150 versions. (It later spread the wheel blockers across all F-150s.) The wheel blockers redirect the energy of the collision away from the passenger cabin.
Other automakers took note but kept developing their own solutions for their next generation of pickups.
For the redesigned 2019 Ram 1500, FCA incorporated what it calls a "splayed" frame, spreading the leading elements of the frame outward on each side of the pickup — and protecting the wheel in the process.
FCA kept the wheel blockers aft of the front wheels but also incorporated other energy management structures into its design to direct the energy from a crash away from passengers. The changes were sufficient enough to win the Ram its first "good" rating in all six IIHS crash tests.
This year before the Ram pickup was tested, the latest version of the Nissan Titan joined the Ford F-150 as the only full-size pickups to earn a "good" rating in the small offset crash test.
Like Ford, Nissan modified its frame in late 2017 to improve passenger protections by redirecting the wheel away from the passenger cabin.
While the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra have yet to be crash tested by IIHS, GM has improved the pickups' frames and incorporated other technologies to keep the front wheels from entering the cabin. The 2016 Silverado double cab earned an "acceptable" rating from IIHS, while its 2016 crew cab was rated "marginal."