IIHS rates work vans and heavy pickups Poor on crash avoidance

IIHS rates work vans and heavy pickups Poor on crash avoidance

8 October 2026: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has published its first crash avoidance ratings for cargo vans and Class 3 pickups, and most of them did badly. Of seven vans and four heavy pickups, only the Mercedes Sprinter and Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 earned Good or Acceptable in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and pedestrian tests.

Ratings for the seven vans

Ratings below are vehicle-to-vehicle first, then pedestrian.

• Chevrolet BrightDrop 400: Acceptable, Good
• Mercedes Sprinter 2500: Good, Acceptable
• Rivian RCV-Delivery 500: Marginal, Good
• Ford Transit T250: Poor, Marginal
• Ram ProMaster 2500: Poor, Marginal
• Chevrolet Express 2500: Poor, Poor
• GMC Savana 2500: Poor, Poor

The Express and Savana have no standard automatic emergency braking. They offer only an optional forward collision warning.

Ratings for the four pickups

The Class 3 pickups, which weigh 10,001 to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating, fared no better:

• Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD: Poor, Marginal
• Ford F-350: Poor, Acceptable
• GMC Sierra 3500: Poor, Marginal
• Ram 3500: Marginal, Acceptable

How the tests work

The vehicle-to-vehicle test checks forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking against passenger-car and motorcycle targets, and forward collision warning against a semitrailer. Motorcycle targets proved the hardest. The pedestrian test covers day and night crossings by an adult or child dummy, plus an adult walking in the lane. Several systems, including those on the F-350 and Ram 3500, had more trouble with the child in daylight than with the adult at night. IIHS suggests the child dummy's short height and the vehicles' tall front ends may play a part. Detection sensors sit near the rearview mirror, and in some cases the dummy was detected at a distance and then disappeared as the vehicle got closer. Nighttime trials ran on low beams and then high beams, and some vehicles did much worse on low beams.

In the vehicle-to-vehicle test, several systems gave no warning and did not slow in most motorcycle trials. Others slowed at most speeds but lost points because their warnings came too late.

The stakes

IIHS counts 6,215 people killed in 2024 crashes involving heavy or medium trucks or light vans, which is 16% of US road deaths. IIHS President David Harkey said, "These results are a wake-up call for commercial vehicle makers."

Driver protection came first

The commercial programme began in June 2026 with driver protection. Of nine vehicles, four met all criteria: the Silverado 3500HD, the F-350 SuperCrew, the BrightDrop 400 and the ProMaster 2500. The Ram 3500, Transit, Sprinter, Rivian Delivery 500 and Express lacked an effective seatbelt reminder, and the Express also lacks standard force limiters. The reminder criterion requires an alert within 30 seconds at 6 to 24 mph, or within 2 seconds at higher speeds, lasting 90 seconds or until the belt is fastened.

IIHS plans headlight and rear automatic emergency braking ratings for Class 3 vehicles this year and next, with Class 4 to 6 trucks to follow later.

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Sources

• IIHS: Cargo vans and work pickups struggle in IIHS crash avoidance tests, 8 October 2026
• IIHS: IIHS launches evaluations of commercial vehicles, starting with driver protection, 9 June 2026