For the 2021 model year, the Ram 1500 Crew Cab stopped short of earning the Top Safety Pick+ award from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety because of the headlights. More to the point, three out of the four available headlight options have earned “marginal” scores.
When it comes to crashworthiness, crash avoidance, and mitigation, the safety wizards at IIHS have awarded the light-duty pickup “good, advanced, and superior” ratings across the board. In vehicle-to-vehicle crash prevention tests, the Ram 1500 has successfully avoided collisions at 12 and 25 mph.
On the downside, the Automatic Emergency Braking system does have a few limitations when it comes to pedestrians. The half-ton rig managed to avoid or slowed down considerably to mitigate the force of impact in most tests, but it didn’t slow down at all in the 37-mph trial designed to simulate a pedestrian walking in the travel lane in the same direction as the vehicle.
The 2020 Ford F-150 SuperCrew pretty much mirrors the ratings of the Ram 1500, but the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew Cab does not. The passenger-side small overlap test proved too much for the GM contender, which is prone to extensive intrusion of the dash, toe pan, and door hinge pillar.
Turning our attention back to the Ram, the truck manufacturer bundles Automatic Emergency Braking in the Level 1 Equipment Group package for the Tradesman and Bighorn. Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking is part of the Advanced Safety Group package, and the driver-assist safety suite also includes adaptive cruise control with stop, go, and hold functions.
At the time of writing, the 1500 Crew Cab starts at approximately $35,000 for the Tradesman with rear-wheel drive and the Pentastar V6. The Level 1 Equipment Group adds $1,555 to the tally. As for the Advanced Safety Group, it costs $1,695 in the Laramie's case and requires the Laramie Level 2 Equipment Group package at $3,995 for a rather hefty total of $5,690.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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