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Toyota pickup bests U.S. rivals in insurance group crash test

Reuters reported that Toyota Motor Co.'s full-sized Tundra pickup truck outmuscled rivals from Detroit's Big Three automakers in crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The IIHS, a U.S. insurance industry group that lobbies automakers on safety issues, issued results of its offset crash tests on Monday. The tests seek to gauge how well occupants would survive in a vehicle if the driver's side of the front end plowed into a barrier at 40 miles per hour.

Of the four 2001 extended-cab pickup models tested, the Tundra won first place with a "good" rating for crashworthiness overall.

In contrast, the Ford F-150 was the worst performer and rated "poor" for what IIHS President Brian O'Neill described as "major collapse of the occupant compartment" in the offset test.

The results are the reverse of rankings from frontal crash tests performed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In those tests, the F-150 earned the highest ratings of the four trucks, with four out of five stars for driver protection and five stars for passenger protection. The Tundra rated the lowest, earning three stars in both tests.

NHTSA's tests measure protection in full frontal crashes at 35 mph.

"As a result of this collapse, the (crash test) dummy's movement wasn't well controlled. High injury measures were recorded on the dummy's head and neck. The airbag deployed late in the crash, and this also contributed to the high injury measures," O'Neill said in a statement.

The Dodge Ram 1500 pickup, produced by the U.S. unit of DaimlerChrysler AG also earned a "poor" rating in the crash test, although it performed slightly better than the F-150. The Ram's airbag also deployed late, contributing to high head and neck injury measures, IIHS said.

It said the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and its sister vehicle, the GMC Sierra 1500, both manufactured by General Motors Corp. earned a "marginal" safety rating overall. The GM trucks won higher marks than the Tundra in terms of injury protection, but rated poorly for damage to the passenger compartment.