Crash Course: 2021 Ram 1500 earns IIHS Top Safety Pick rating
The truck earned the title two years back-to-back—but only when optioned a specific way
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The 2021 Ram 1500 Crew Cab earned a 2021 Top Safety Pick rating from the testing boffins at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). It marks back-to-back (2020 and 2021) Top Safety Pick titles from IIHS for the pickup, but shoppers should be aware a specific option group netted Ram this accolade.
Specifically, Ram 1500 Crew Cab trucks fitted with the Advanced Safety Group were recognized with this award.
This equipment package includes Lane Departure Warning-Plus, Rear Cross Path detection, and Adaptive Cruise Control. The latter includes the ability to stop, go, and hold the truck in traffic when conditions are right.
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Also part of the group is blind-spot monitoring with trailer detection. Your author, who’s still waiting for a turn behind the wheel of a TRX, will assert right here and now that designing these systems to account for a trailer tagging along behind your truck is a very handy invention. Users input the length of their trailer and the system figures out the rest.
Earning this recognition involved more than doing well in terms of its active safety technology features. Central to the truck’s evaluation was its performance in half a dozen crashworthiness tests that included three types of frontal crashes. The remaining tests inflict damage consistent with a side impact, rear impact, and a rollover.
It’s worth noting that a piece of Ram safety kit, Automatic Emergency Braking, earned the highest possible rating – “superior” – in IIHS testing of the vehicle-to-vehicle scenario. This feature is standard equipment on trims from Laramie on up and is available even on entry-level Tradesman and Bighorn trims as part of a Level 1 Equipment Group package.
Ram says their 1500 truck is the first and only pickup to earn a Top Safety Pick rating from IIHS testing.
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