Small pickup trucks fail to attain ‘top-notch-across-the-board’ rollover protection: IIHS

The Nissan Frontier has the strongest roof and the Chevrolet Colorado the weakest among the small pickup trucks tested for rollover protection by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
The IIHS tested five 2010 models. They rated as follows:
•    The Frontier (also sold as the Suzuki Equator) is the only pickup in the group to earn the highest rating of ‘Good’;
•    The Ford Ranger is rated ‘Acceptable’;
•    The Dodge Dakota, Toyota Tacoma and Colorado (also sold as the GMC Canyon) earn the second lowest rating of ‘Marginal’.
“As a group, small pickups aren’t performing as well as small cars or small SUVs in all of the Institute’s safety tests,” said David Zuby, IIHS senior vice president. “None of the ones we tested is a top-notch performer across the board.”
In the IIHS’s roof strength test, a metal plate is pushed against one corner of a roof at a constant speed.
To earn a ‘Good’ rating, a roof must withstand a force four times the vehicle’s weight before reaching five inches of crush. For an ‘Acceptable’ rating, the minimum strength-to-weight ratio required is 3.25. A ‘Marginal’ rating value is 2.5. Anything lower than 2.5 results in a ‘Poor’ rating.
The Frontier withstood a force of just over four times its weight, the IIHS reported. This compares with 2.9 times weight for the Colorado.
A strength-to-weight ratio of four reflects an estimated 50% reduction in serious or fatal injury risk in single-vehicle rollover crashes, the IIHS added.