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The 2022 Toyota Tacoma safety rating wasn’t as high as had hoped on the new Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) test. To qualify for the IIHS Top Safety Pick award, the Toyota truck needed high scores on all six tests. Which test tripped up the 2022 Tacoma, and did any other Toyota trucks receive an award?

The 2022 Toyota Tacoma safety rating from the IIHS missed the mark

2022 Toyota Tacoma safety rating only marginal on IIHS test
The 2022 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck | Toyota

The IIHS recently released the 2022 Toyota Tacoma safety rating in all of its crashworthiness tests. This year, the organization increased the difficulty of many of its crashworthy and crash avoidance/mitigation tests. This has tripped up a lot of new vehicles this year.

In the small overlap front: passenger-side test, which is one of the main ones, the 2022 Tacoma truck only managed to get a score of “acceptable.” The scoring goes from good, acceptable, marginal, to poor. The lower leg/foot area sustained an injury during the test crash, leading to a poor score.

This new marginal rating applies specifically to the 2022 Tacoma extended-cab models built on or after October 2021. The older model received a poor score during testing. The Tacoma four-door crew-cab version managed to get a score of acceptable.

This year’s Toyota Tacoma safety rating is still an improvement over 2021

Unfortunately, that means the 2022 Toyota Tacoma won’t qualify for the Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick Plus award. Vehicles have to earn good ratings in all six of the IIHS crashworthiness tests. The other tests are the small overlap front: driver-side, moderate overlap front, side: original test, roof strength, and head restraints/seats. The 2022 Toyota Tacoma safety rating on all five of the other tests was good.

The 2022 Top Safety Pick and Safety Pick Plus awards are more stringent than ever. Vehicles have to get an advanced or superior rating for available front crash prevention. That applies to both the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations. In addition, acceptable or good scores on the standard headlights.

What other Toyota vehicles secured an IIHS award?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety didn’t issue as many Top Safety Pick awards to Toyota trucks and SUVs this year. For SUVs, the C-HR, Corolla Cross, RAV4, RAV4 Prime, and Venza received one TSP award or another for 2022. The 2022 Toyota Highlander was the only midsize SUV to receive an award. No trucks qualified so far this year.

The 2022 Toyota Tacoma safety rating probably won’t improve for this year, but there’s always next year. The point of the updated tests is only to make vehicles safer, which Toyota will probably get in line with. Since the brand is known for reliability, the IIHS and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) scores are an important selling point.

So far this year, the IIHS has only awarded the Top Safety Pick award to the 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz small pickup truck. With the more challenging tests, it might take this year to get the trucks acquainted with the new safety standards.

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Amanda Cline

Amanda Cline is an avid fan of Formula 1 and joined MotorBiscuit in 2021. A Southwest Floridian, she easily and often finds automotive events to attend in the Tampa, Orlando, and Miami areas.
Amanda is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, where she earned a Bachelor’s in English Literature and a Master’s in Technical Communication. Combining her editorial and digital media expertise, Amanda served as a content creator for FanSided and now provides our readers with a variety of automotive subject matter like pickup trucks and SUVs, including valuable consumer advice.

Amanda closely follows many F1 drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team. Her all-time favorite author is Shel Silverstein.