You may be wondering if the 2021 Dodge Ram 1500 is safe. There are so many safety ratings to sort through, it can be hard to know which are important. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is an independent organization which prioritizes consumer safety. Let’s look at what the IIHS thinks of the 2021 Dodge Ram. 

The IIHS gave the 2021 Dodge Ram 1500 a Top Safety Pick. A Top Safety Pick is awarded when a vehicle gets good ratings in the driver-side and passenger-side small overlap front ratings and moderate overlap front. A vehicle must also get a good rating in side crash tests, roof strength and head restraint tests. 

Additionally, a vehicle must get a superior or advanced rating for front crash prevention in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian tests. Finally, a Top Safety Pick must have acceptable or good headlights available. 

The IIHS Top Safety Pick applies only to the large, crew cab pickups with optional crash prevention and certain headlights. 

How did the 2021 Dodge Ram 1500 do in the IIHS crash test ratings?

The IIHS measures the front moderate overlap, driver side small overlap, and passenger side small overlap crash worthiness. Overlap testing determines how a car does when part of the front strikes a barrier. 

The IIHS tested a 2019 Ram 1500 Big Horn Crew Cab 2WD and says that their test results apply to the 2019-2021 model years built after July 2018.

The small overlap front: driver side tests came out mostly good, with the exception of the lower leg/foot. 

For the small overlap front: passenger side tests, the IIHS tested a 2019 Ram1500 Tradesman Crew Cab 2wd. The overall evaluation was good, but the structure and safety cage was only acceptable. 

The passenger injury measures were all good, including the head/neck and chest. The passenger restraints, driver restraints, and dummy kinematics for both were also good. 

Moderate overlap and side crash tests were performed on the 2019 Ram 1500 Big Horn Crew Cab 2wd. These were all good.

How was the roof strength, head restraints and seats?

You probably don’t even think about roof strength when car shopping. (Or maybe you do, but you probably already know all these crash test ratings.) How about head restraints and seats? It’s important to know how the pickup you’ll buy did in these tests. 

The 2021 Dodge Ram 1500 scored a good result for roof strength. It also got a good score in the overall evaluation for the power leather seat. The Ram 1500 also got a good score in the dynamic rating and the seat/head restraint geometry. 

How did the Dodge Ram 1500 do in front crash prevention?

The Ram 1500 scored a superior rating in the vehicle-to-vehicle for the overall evaluation with the optional Advanced Safety Group or Level 1 Safety Group. In both the 12 mph and 25 mph IIHS test, the Ram 1500 was able to avoid a collision. 

A whole bunch of trim levels were tested in the vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention. The Ram 1500 scored advanced. In the 12 mph crossing child test, the Ram 1500 avoided a collision. When the IIHS conducted the 25 mph test, the speed was reduced by 21%. 

In the crossing adult 12 mph and 25 mph tests, the Ram was able to avoid a collision. It also avoided a collision in the parallel adult 25 mph test. However, in the 37 mph, the Ram 1500 didn’t slow down. A warning was issued 2.4 seconds before the collision. 

The headlight ratings for the four trim levels tested were between marginal and good. The child seat anchors were also marginal. The IIHS found them to be too deep in the seat, difficult to find, and easy to confuse with other hardware.