ANCAP looking into safety of big US pick-up trucks

Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) executives have revealed that the booming popularity of American pick-up trucks has put them in the crash-testing body’s sights for 2025.

It’s not like the popular one-tonne utes such as the Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max aren’t a safety concern for motorists, but as the biggest sellers now carry five-star safety ratings and myriad driver-assistance features to avoid crashes, they’re a lot safer these days.

The vehicles at the heart of the large pick-up concern are the Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, Toyota Tundra and Ford F-150 – the predominant pick-ups of North America that are making their way to Australia in increasing numbers. Sales are up to 8808 by the end of October – more than were sold in the whole of 2022, with F-150 and Tundra deliveries yet to commence.

We're working out at the moment what that plan will look like – it'll definitely involve ADAS testing

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US utes dwarf what's on the roads in Australia – even the Ford Ranger

The worry isn’t so much the safety of the vehicle occupants, but rather how these circa-2500kg body-on-frame vehicles interface with smaller cars, motorcyclists, and pedestrians.

“Some of them have some of the safety systems we'd expect to see in terms of ADAS [advanced driver-assistance systems], some of them don't necessarily. They're in urban areas, they're mixing with other road users and there are definitely concerns from the community about the size of the vehicles. So our considerations are: what information can we provide about these vehicles?” ANCAP CEO Carla Hoorweg told Wheels at a 30th-anniversary media event this week.

“We're working out at the moment what that plan will look like – it'll definitely involve ADAS testing. What more we do starts to become a trade-off as they're very expensive vehicles, so it's a question of: What are you going to learn and what information you're going to be able to provide through the different tests that we've got available to us and where the best value is going to be in terms of being able to provide comparable safety information for people”, said Hoorweg.

“For [vehicles] that are coming out of the United States, there's not the same focus on pedestrian [safety] in the US either, so we just don't really have any intel about whether these systems are working in those vehicles and that's the kind of information that we can provide.”

Carla is talking about autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems, but also blind-spot monitoring and other assistance technologies. American safety testing bodies such as the NHTSA and IIHS do not evaluate the detection of vulnerable road users to the same depth as ANCAP and Euro NCAP protocols.

Destructive crash testing isn’t out of the question because, while utes are typically safer for onboard occupants, vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility plays a larger role in five-star ratings from 2023.

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The Ford Ranger scored five stars in ANCAP safety testing – this image shows the MPDB crash

“Where [utes] might get advantages they also get penalised more heavily from 2023 with compatibility in the MPDB [frontal offset] test. That's where the penalties increased from this year. So if you are causing more significant damage to the barrier when you impact it, you're going to get a bigger penalty which reduces your score for adult occupant protection.”

ANCAP chief technical officer Mark Terrell explained what’s known as the ‘fork effect’, where the frame rails of a ute – if not adequately insulated by a front crash structure – can penetrate another vehicle and cause severe harm to both those in and out of the vehicle.

“These vehicles largely will be eligible for the star ratings program”, said Carla noting that the independent body could spend money putting each ute through the full star rating program.

“Maybe the manufacturers want to front up for this one; we're having those conversations with them. We've got limited resources in terms of what we can spend on testing each year and we've got to make that deliver the best result for that”, she added.

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For a brand committed to safety such as Toyota, it may be worthwhile volunteering several Tundras for crash-testing

It all comes down to balancing cost outlay against public benefit. So, like the commercial van program, ANCAP is likely to provide Gold, Silver and Bronze active safety scores, and not recommended awards depending on performance.

“We want to create something where you can see ‘this is what's good, this is what's performing really well, and this is where improvements are needed’. So how [ANCAP] designs the protocols for that and what we choose to test is a significant part of that conversation”, said Carla.

Prior to the focus on full-size pick-ups – with a publish date of early 2025 likely – ANCAP is planning to investigate the safety of light delivery trucks (3.5-5 tonnes) and collaborate closely with Euro NCAP on safety for heavy goods vehicles and prime movers.