On paper, the 2026 Toyota Tacoma looked like a lock for the IIHS Top Safety Pick. Almost every box was ticked with strong ratings. Yet the badge never came. And the reason turned up where few people bother to look — not up front, but in the back.
The stumbling block was the updated moderate overlap front test. The result — Marginal. That sits below the bar you need to clear to make the list of the best. This applies to the Crew Cab version. In the test, the vehicle slams into a deformable barrier covering 40% of the front width at 64 km/h, with a second dummy seated behind the driver. And that rear passenger has become the main filter for dozens of models: the IIHS toughened the methodology because modern cars protect the driver superbly but handle the second row far worse.
The Tacoma earned Good for its body and safety cell. Driver injury metrics were in the green too: head, neck, chest, hips and legs all cleared the test. The pickup didn't “fold” on impact — that part is fine. What let it down was the rear passenger restraint system. On the dummy's kinematics the IIHS handed out a Poor: the lap belt rode upward, off the pelvis and onto the soft tissue of the abdomen, and that kind of “submarining” threatens serious internal injuries. That single episode dragged the overall result down to Marginal.
And in every other respect the Tacoma looks confident. Small overlap front — Good. The updated side test — Good. Headlights — Acceptable. The Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 suite with collision prevention earned Good for pedestrian protection and a high mark in the vehicle-to-vehicle check. So for the buyer, what matters isn't the Top Safety Pick badge itself, but the reason it wasn't awarded.
The Tacoma remains a tough, tech-packed pickup. But the new test hits a sore spot: second-row safety is now scrutinised harder than ever. If the vehicle regularly carries a family, children or rear passengers, this rating stops being a formality. Against Toyota's reputation, the result is unpleasant. You couldn't call it a disaster, though.
The pickup didn't flunk the IIHS programme wholesale — it tripped over one specific scenario, where the belts and restraint of the rear passenger simply have to work better. And that is a sign of the times. A modern pickup is no longer measured by frame, torque and reliability alone. The question now sounds different: does it protect those who aren't behind the wheel just as well?
