The Hidden Danger of Big Pickup Trucks

Full-sized pickups command the marketplace. The three best-selling vehicles in the U.S. are trucks: the Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram 1500. Pickups now count for 1 of every 5 new vehicles sold. Within the segment, full-sized trucks have become even more popular than compact or midsized models. Full-sized trucks, such as the F-150, Silverado, Ram 1500, Toyota Tundra, and Nissan Titan, hold 79 percent of the pickup market as of 2020, up 12 percent from 2000.

Safety advocates say that truck designers could lower hoods or reduce weight, but automakers are reluctant to do so because pickups are a major source of profit. Industry analysts say that offering bigger trucks with imposing front ends has been a factor in a winning sales strategy.

“Trucks could look less tough, but you don’t want to be the one to make your truck look soft,” says Tyson Jominy, vice president for data and analytics at J.D. Power. He estimates that an automaker might make four to five times more money on a pickup than a sedan, partly because manufacturing a truck is simpler and because buyers will pay more for a pickup. “You can charge a lot for the capability, for the image.”

Automakers are also selling a lifestyle, says Angie Schmitt, founder and principal at 3MPH Planning and Consulting, a firm focused on pedestrian safety. She points to ads with trucks at construction sites, hauling massive trailers, and racing over sand dunes. “They’re not hiding the fact that they’re marketing these trucks as being really macho and a display of masculinity or prowess,” she says. “That’s a big part of the marketing, and I think that it works.”

Trucks with luxurious amenities and prices north of $60,000 can also be status symbols. “They’re absolutely not typically a choice for the average American car buyer,” says Bernard Swiecki, director of research at the Center for Automotive Research. He estimates that the typical pickup buyer’s median household income is $60,000 a year higher than the average American household’s income.

And the government provides incentives for purchasing larger trucks. They aren’t subject to gas guzzler taxes, heavy-duty trucks are held to looser fuel-economy standards than cars and smaller trucks, and small-business owners get a bigger tax write-off for buying a heavier vehicle—even if their work doesn’t require it. “There’s no shortage of accountants encouraging this loophole,” says Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In real-world collisions with pedestrians, a pickup’s tall front end and higher bumper are more likely than a lower vehicle’s to cause serious injuries, transferring energy directly to a victim’s hips and pelvis, says Becky Mueller, senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Smaller pedestrians also have a higher risk of head injury because they’re more likely to have head-to-hood contact. And trucks are more likely to push a pedestrian down and run them over, she says. “And that, we know, is a more deadly scenario.”

A recent IIHS study of nearly 18,000 pedestrian crashes found that vehicles with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes when compared with cars and other vehicles with hood heights of 30 inches or less and a sloping front profile. Among vehicles with hood heights between 30 and 40 inches, a more vertical front-end design increases the risk to pedestrians.

CR’s testing has found that bigger vehicles in general have a harder time avoiding crashes. “Pickups and other large vehicles routinely do worse in our emergency handling and braking tests,” says Jake Fisher, CR’s senior director of auto testing. And when a truck and car collide, the car’s driver is 1.59 times more likely to die than in two-vehicle crashes without a pickup involved, according to the IIHS. By comparison, modern SUVs are no longer as deadly as trucks in crashes with cars. That’s because SUVs have become lighter and more carlike as a class over the past 20 years—just as trucks started adding weight, partly from popular features such as larger cabs.

Modern trucks that weigh less than 4,000 pounds pose the same danger as an SUV to the occupants of smaller vehicles. But a full-sized truck with four-wheel drive can top 5,000 pounds, and midsized trucks, such as the Gladiator and Ford Ranger, can exceed 4,500 pounds.

Larger pickups also reflect the transportation inequities that may put certain people at greater risk. Buyers of smaller cars that offer less protection in crashes with big trucks tend to have lower incomes. And although most truck buyers are male, an IIHS study found that women are more likely to be injured in a crash with a pickup.

Progress has been slow to improve safety. In 2015 NHTSA proposed adding a pedestrian safety component to its New Car Assessment Program, which publishes crash-test ratings for new vehicles. Only now is NHTSA planning to implement upgrades and improvements to NCAP. The agency says that all new cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks must come with effective AEB technology by 2029, which it estimates will save at least 360 lives and prevent at least 24,000 injuries each year.

Even so, experts say that automakers are unlikely to go against consumer demand and reduce truck size. Safety advocates recommend mandating advanced safety systems for all models. States and cities should also lower speed limits and improve pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in areas where trucks share the roads with people, Schmitt says. “If our vehicles are going to be getting so much bigger and so much more lethal to pedestrians,” she says, “it also falls on road designers to do a better job protecting them.”