In recent years, the Ford Explorer has earned its fair share of recognition for being one of the safer choices on the market, earning strong ratings in updated side impact and moderate front overlap crash testing conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), while also scoring an IIHS Top Safety Pick award for 2023, too. Now, the IIHS has released its list of Top Safety Picks for 2024, and the Ford Explorer has once again earned a spot there – this time, an even higher Top Safety Pick+ award, which is notable for some very good reasons.
The Ford Explorer is one of just 22 vehicles to earn IIHS Top Safety Pick+ status for 2024, which isn’t a huge number, but that’s largely because the agency changed its requirements to make them more stringent than in the past. To achieve this top rating, a vehicle must earn a score of “good” in the recently-updated side crash testing, which now uses a heavier barrier traveling at a higher speed. Vehicles must also achieve an acceptable or good rating in the revised IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention evaluation, and acceptable or good ratings in the updated moderate front overlap test.
Otherwise, as was the case previously, Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ certification requires good protection in a small overlap front crash, in which 25 percent of the vehicle’s width on either side collides with another vehicle or a stationary object. In that regard, the Ford Explorer achieved ratings of good in small overlap front, modern overlap, and side crash testing, acceptable ratings for headlights, front crash prevention for pedestrians, and ease of child restraint/seat belt use, along with a poor rating for seat belt reminders.
“We followed the tougher requirements we introduced last year with another major update to the award criteria in 2024,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “This year’s winners are true standouts, offering the highest level of protection for both vehicle occupants and other vulnerable road users. There’s still progress to be made in the protection that vehicles provide for their occupants, as the introduction of the updated moderate overlap test shows. But many of the biggest gains of the future will come from automakers and policymakers, along with all of us as car buyers and drivers, taking steps to protect everyone on the road, not just our own families.”
We’ll have more on the Explorer soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Ford Explorer news and continuous Ford news coverage.
Comment
Too bad QC on the Explorer is non existent.