I guess we L owners may evaporate into a red mist in a real world crash at high speeds. The link may not work due to their site being hammered with hits; so, I cut-and-pasted it.

http://www.insure.com/auto/collision/pickups601.html


Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram flunk pickup crash tests
By Heather Williams
insure.com
If you're shopping for a new pickup truck you might want to avoid two of the most popular vehicles on the road — the Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram pickup trucks.

Both models received the worst possible marks (rated "poor," with a high risk of serious injury) in crash tests announced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) on June 4, 2001.

The IIHS, an insurance industry-sponsored group, tested four 2001-model pickup trucks: The F-150, Ram, Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra, and Toyota Tundra. Only the Toyota Tundra received the IIHS's highest ranking, "good." The Silverado/Sierra is rated "marginal," IIHS's second-lowest ranking.

To see how your car or truck fares in crash tests, visit insure.com's Car Crash Performance Tool.
The evaluations are based on frontal crash tests in which each vehicle is driven into an offset barrier — that is, not head-on — at 40 miles per hour. This crash mimics the effect of one pickup truck driving into another of equal weight at 40 MPH, or of a vehicle hitting a fixed object such as a bridge abutment at 40 MPH. The IIHS measures three aspects of the vehicles' performance after the crash: how much the vehicle's frame intrudes into the occupants' compartment; the extent of injuries to the crash-test dummy in the driver's seat; and an analysis of a slow-motion film that shows how well the vehicle's safety belts and air bags controlled the dummy's movement during the crash.

"The whole concept of good crash protection is to use the front end of the vehicle to absorb energy, but maintain the safety cage around the occupants," says Steve Oesch, senior vice president at IIHS. "You don't want to have the instrument panel driven back, or the foot well area pushed back — you don't want the feet trapped or lower legs injured."


Test results
The F-150 is the best-selling vehicle in America, according to Car & Driver magazine. It also performed the worst in crash tests, with its passenger compartment collapsing. "As a result of this collapse, the dummy's movement wasn't well controlled. High injury measures were recorded on the dummy's head and neck," says IIHS President Brian O'Neill. In addition, the F-150's air bag deployed too late in the crash to be effective, which meant further injury to the dummy.

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The Dodge Ram, rated "poor" overall, also saw major collapse of the occupant's compartment and a late air bag deployment.

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Pictures of the crashed F-150, provided by IIHS, show the truck's front end completely crumpled, with the passenger compartment destroyed. The collapse "left little survival space for the driver," notes the IIHS. Both driver-side doors partially opened during the crash, and the driver's seat pitched forward, wedging the dummy into a narrow space made smaller by the collapse of the compartment.

By contrast, although the Toyota Tundra's front end also crumpled in the crash, its passenger compartment appears relatively unscathed, with the driver's side door still able to be opened. "There was very little intrusion into the occupant compartment," O'Neill says of the Tundra's crash performance. "As a result, the dummy's movement was well-controlled, and the injury measures all were low except for some moderately high force recorded on the dummy's right leg." Unlike the F-150, the driver's "survival space" was maintained in the Tundra crash.

The Dodge Ram, rated "poor" overall, also saw major collapse of the occupant's compartment and a late air bag deployment, which caused major head and neck injury to the crash test dummy. The Ram's restraint system — seat belts and air bags — did not function well, IIHS says, which meant the dummy's head hit the side windowsill in the crash.

The Silverado, America's second-highest selling car according to Car & Driver, was rated "marginal" for its "substantial occupant compartment intrusion." The crash test dummy fared better than in the F-150 but still saw the driver's seat pitch forward; combined with "intrusion" into the foot well and instrument panel, meant that the dummy had little space for its legs and feet after the crash.

If real-world crashes and resulting insurance claims mirror IIHS's results, owners of poorly performing pickups could see higher insurance costs. IIHS says the point of its crash tests is to get auto makers to rethink car and truck design, aiming for higher safety standards.

"If you're out there looking for a truck, based on these results, you clearly want to look at one that does well, like the Toyota Tundra, as opposed to the Ford F-150 or Ram that does poorly in these tests," Oesch says. "Our goal here is to have the manufacturers go back and look at these designs, and incorporate improvements that can increase protection for everyone." Oesch says that when IIHS began performing frontal-offset crash tests using 1995-model vehicles, only 25 percent of the vehicles tested earned the "good" label, whereas more than half of the 1999 through 2001-model vehicles tested now rate "good."



[This message has been edited by BadBolt (edited 06-12-2001).]

 

Which car would you rather be in during an accident, a civic or F150.

Crash test easily solved:
don't get into an accident. If it's unavoidable then aim for an object which is not as strong as our trucks.

 

How many people expect to walk away from a 40mph collision? Before long a person will have to be completly strapped into a bubble wrapped compartment to simply drive to the corner store.

I understand people want a safe vehicle. But I don't buy one so that I can ram something at 40mph either. Sheesh!

[This message has been edited by CornerCarver (edited 06-12-2001).]

 

I wonder how much money toyota paid IIHS for this wondeful piece of information since toyota has only about 7% of pickup truck sales in the U.S.

 

As I have already posted in about 20 of these threads, as well as requested in the announcement that is linked on every thread page, I am moving this to the "Safety & Maintenance" forum where it belongs.

Steve

 

I think all that test proves is that dummies should not drive F150s.

Seriously, I think if the current generation of F150s were that dangerous in crash, we would have found about it long before this test. The F150 is the most popular pick-up on the road with hundreds of thousands of units in service.

Also, I am not sure the test was fair or comparable. If I remember correctly, the F150 tested was an extended cab model. The Tundra was a four door model. Might make a difference.

 

All I know is that if my insurance rates go up as a result of this I'm forming a class action lawsuit against my carrier. There's no way any of us could have know about the crash test results when we purchased our trucks therefore we didn't have the opportunity to make an educated buying decision. As far as I'm concerned we shouldn't have to pay higher rates because of that.



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My New Baby: 2001 F-150 XLT Sport 4x4. 5.4L, S/C, S/S, Bright Red, Dark Graphite Int., 3.55, Class III Tow/Heavy Duty Cooling, 4 wheel disc ABS, Overhead Console, Factory In-Dash CD, Remote Keyless Entry.

Mods: Ziebart Rust Protection, Ford Bug Deflector, Ventvisors, Cabin Air Filtration

Future Mods: Running Boards/nerf bars, Superchip, Air Force 1, Spray-in Bedliner, and Retrax.

2000 Polaris Sportsman 500, Camo Green, 4x4, 499cc 4-stroke, independent suspension, shaft drive, 4 wheel disc brakes, etc.

 

I'm hoping the insurance companies have enough real world crash data to keep the rates the same. If the IIHS crash data test says a particular vehicle is unsafe, yet the real world data shows a lower than normal claim rate, I would hope that they would keep the rates where they are now.