Ford Scores Seven 2022 IIHS Top Safety Pick, TSP+
Photo: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
Last month, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety began rolling out the names of vehicles that earned its top safety honors. Ford counts seven vehicles among the list of 2022 IIHS Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ award-winners, including heavy hitters like the Explorer and Bronco Sport.
More on the Bronco Sport: Ford serves it up with a rough-and-tumble crossover with a ton of personality
2022 Ford Bronco Sport, Explorer take home Top Safety Pick+
The 2022 Ford Bronco Sport and Explorer both earned the IIHS Top Safety Pick+, the highest honor the organization offers. This makes a repeat TSP+ performance for both the Bronco Sport and the Explorer. Five other vehicles — the Edge, Escape, F-150 SuperCab and Super Crew, and Mustang Mach-E — nabbed the Top Safety Pick.
To receive either honor, a vehicle must ace all six IIHS crashworthiness tests with a good score. These tests include driver- and passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraints.
2022 IIHS Top Safety Pack and TSP+ winners must also score advanced or superior ratings in front crash prevention. This includes tests measuring vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian situations.
The difference that allows a vehicle to earn that extra plus sign comes from the headlights. To be a TSP+, every headlight offered with the Bronco Sport and Explorer had to earn scores of good or acceptable. A Top Safety Pick merely has to offer one optional pair of headlights that earn either score.
Of the seven Ford vehicles, the 2022 Ford Bronco Sport arguably performed the most impressively. It earned the highest scores possible in every category but one. That would be LATCH ease of use, a metric that the IIHS tests but doesn’t factor into safety scores.
IIHS making major safety test changes in 2023
IIHS has announced several changes for the 2023 Top Safety Pick awards. Namely, vehicles will have to take a tougher side test conducted at a higher speed but can earn a Top Safety Pick with an acceptable score.
IIHS will also add a nighttime pedestrian crash prevention test, and vehicles must earn advanced or superior ratings to earn the Top Safety Pick+.
Finally, vehicles will be required to have good or acceptable headlights across all trims and packages to earn either the TSP or TSP+. IIHS President David Harkey says that the increased number of TSP+ winners “shows that it’s time to push for additional changes.” This, he suggests, will continue to allow vehicles to become safer.
Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.