While the 2022 Ford Maverick has been a smash hit with critics and consumers alike, it has faltered a bit in some safety-related areas, most recently flunking the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS)Â revised seat belt reminder test. Now, the 2022 Ford Maverick has also received a poor rating of “basic” for the night-time performance of its automatic emergency braking system (AEB), joining the 2022 Ford Explorer in that regard while the 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E earned the top rating of “superior.”
In all fairness, only four of the 23 vehicles recently tested by the IIHS earned a superior ranking, while over half were given a basic score or no credit whatsoever. The Maverick was joined by the Explorer, Chevrolet Traverse, Mazda CX-9, Volkswagen Atlas, Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport, and Volkswagen Tiguan as vehicles that earned a basic score, while the pedestrian AEB systems in the Chevrolet Malibu, Honda Pilot, Nissan Altima, and Toyota Tacoma didn’t perform well enough in the dark to earn any credit.
This test consists of two different scenarios – an adult crossing the road and an adult walking along the road at the edge of the travel lane, both of which take place in the dark. The crossing test is conducted at 12 and 25 miles-per-hour, and the parallel test is conducted at 25 and 37 miles-per-hour. Scores are awarded based on the average speed reductions in five repeated test runs on dry pavement. Separate trials are conducted with the headlights on the high beam and low beam settings.
These results are particularly notable as pedestrian deaths in the U.S. continue to rise, growing by nearly 80 percent between 2009 and 2021 to around 7,300 people last year alone – nearly one-fifth of total traffic fatalities. Among those deaths, roughly 75 percent occur at night, which underscores the need for improvements to be made to existing AEB systems.
“As we expected, most of these pedestrian AEB systems don’t work very well in the dark,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “But it’s clear automakers can rise to this new challenge, as Ford, Nissan, and Toyota each earn superior ratings for some models. It’s discouraging that so many midsize SUVs and small pickups perform poorly in the nighttime test because research suggests these types of vehicles are more dangerous to pedestrians.”
We’ll have more on the Maverick soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Ford Maverick news and 24/7 Ford news coverage.
Comments
My seatbelt system in the Maverick is loud and will not stop till you fasten both of them. What are they talking about? If you need automatic braking, you should not be driving.
i certainly hope that this system just make you aware of something or someone on the side of the road, i hope it doesn’t actually react to such obstacles unless it’s in the travel lane. please don’t tell me it puts the brakes on if you pass a object on the side of the road, that would be dangerous and stupid, could cause you to swerve and hit the object. if it does i’ll be looking to bypass this “feature” somehow. back to the real problem: it’s been 9 months and counting and nothing but 2 excuse emails, focus on building the truck then we can focus on the safety features, right now this has to be the safest vehicle every made, there ain’t any!!!
I NEED MY MAVERICK
ME TOO 1 1MONTHS, NO MAVERICK
i love the picture of a car carrier unloading Mavericks, problem is they’re probably in Brazil, thanks allot Ford. My bet is they probably loaded them right back up and brought them back to the assembly plant in Mexico, thanks again Ford. where i live all the car dealerships are along the interstate and every single one has vehicles to sell except the Ford dealership, the lot looks like a ghost town, thanks so much Ford!
I’m giving the IIHS a score of marginal for the relevancy of their safety category criteria as of late.