With IIHS Award, Ram Scores a Marketing Coup Over Ford

While Ram’s holdover 1500 Classic isn’t about to earn any top safety awards, its current-generation successor just did. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety bestowed a coveted Top Safety Pick + label upon Ram’s strong-selling full-size pickup, making it the first vehicle in its class to ever earn the accolade.

Lots of pickups are plenty safe, lording over the road as they do, but a new addition to the IIHS’s testing regimen prevented the awarding of top honors to any member of these open-trunk, half-ton family sedans — headlights. Thanks to a tweak in May of this year, the Ram 1500 crew cab now qualifies for the top podium.

“To qualify for a 2019 TOP SAFETY PICK+ award, a vehicle must earn good ratings in the driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests,” the Institute stated. “It also needs an advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention and a good headlight rating.”

While the new-for-2019 Ram 1500 improved on its predecessor’s crashworthiness, its headlamps weren’t anything to write home about. Be it halogen or LED, the 1500 earned only poor or marginal ratings for headlight performance. Even the fancy LED projector lamps found on top-tier trims angered the IIHS with its “excessive glare.”

After May 2019, those peepers ceased to be a problem — the LED projector lamps now rate a “good,” allowing the 1500 crew cab to collect its top top safety rating. Quad cab models need not apply. This doesn’t mean your Ram 1500 crew cab is the pinnacle of safety, mind you. These lamps can only be found as standard kit on high-zoot Laramie Longhorn and Limited models.

Still, expect to see this award touted heavily in marketing materials and on billboards near you. In contrast, the 2019 Ford F-150 earns top marks for all crash tests and its optional front crash protection, but “poor” headlamps keep it out of the running for a top safety pick. The 2019 Chevrolet Silverado, which the Ram 1500 recently surpassed as second-place sales leader, also suffers from a poor headlamp rating, as well as mediocre performance in the small overlap front passenger-side crash test. Same goes for its GMC Sierra sibling.

[Image: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles]