The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has published new ratings for most 2024 model year vehicles. The numbers show that large sport utilities are not inherently safe due to their size. Out of all of the large SUVs crash tested, only the 2024 Jeep Wagoneer achieved a Top Safety Pick award.
Other best selling large SUV models like the Chevrolet Tahoe and Ford Expedition fell short of high rank for multiple reasons. Especially on the important small overlap front crash test. That’s compared to other vehicle segments, which have a 90 percent success rate for that testing.
Even the high-ranked Wagoneer didn’t make a top score on back seat safety, which is why it did not make the top-most “Plus” award for its Top Safety Pick win.
“The huge mass of these large SUVs provides some additional protection in crashes with smaller vehicles,” said IIHS President David Harkey, “though that also means they present more danger to other road users. The flip side of their large size is that there is a lot more force to manage when they crash into a fixed obstacle like a tree or bridge abutment or the barrier we use in our front crash tests.”
