Ford Bronco Safety Rating: Headlights, Head Restraints Bench the SUV from IIHS Award

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety plans to toughen its crash tests in the coming years, but the reimaged 2021 Ford Bronco is unable to meet even the agency’s current standards for award eligibility. Ford’s mid-size, off-road-focused SUV failed to qualify for either of IIHS’s Top Safety Pick awards due to its subpar head restraints and headlights.

Related: Good Headlights Reduce Crashes by 19%, Says IIHS Study

According to the agency, the Bronco’s head restraints fail to provide good protection against whiplash injuries. The SUV was also ineligible for award status because IIHS says its headlights provide inadequate illumination on curves.

To qualify for Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick Plus status, a vehicle must earn a score of good — on a scale of good, acceptable, marginal or poor — in six impact evaluations:

• Moderate overlap frontal test for the driver’s side
• Small overlap frontal crash tests for the driver’s side
• Small overlap frontal crash test for the passenger side
• Side impact crash test
• Evaluation of rear impact crashworthiness on head restraints and seats
• Evaluation of roof strength

Available or standard front crash prevention technologies must also earn a score of superior or advanced (on a scale of superior, advanced, basic or none) in preventing both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian collisions. Finally, at least one set of a vehicle’s available headlight systems must earn a good or acceptable rating. A Top Safety Pick Plus award requires that all available headlights on every trim earn a good or acceptable rating.

The Bronco earned good ratings in five out of six crashworthiness tests and superior and advanced ratings in vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian crash prevention tests for its two automatic emergency braking systems. Its head restraints earned only an acceptable rating, however, because they failed to adequately mitigate crash forces applied to a test dummy’s neck during a simulated rear-end crash. IIHS said the head restraint did not provide enough support for the occupant’s head and neck to earn a good rating. Subpar ratings for the head restraint test, a longstanding evaluation, are “pretty rare” these days, according to Joe Young, a spokesperson for IIHS.

“There are only four other 2021 models (about 2% of the vehicles we’ve rated) that earn an acceptable rating in that test,” Young told Cars.com in an email. “The 2022 Nissan Pathfinder also earns an acceptable rating in that test, and would be the most recent test before the Bronco to earn that rating.”

The Bronco’s headlights were also a problem. According to IIHS, both of the SUV’s headlight systems earn marginal ratings because their low beams do not illuminate the road to a far enough distance on curves.

The Bronco is an anomaly. IIHS reports that between 2016, when it implemented its headlight rating system, and 2020, the number of good-rated vehicle headlights has increased to 29% from the prior 4%, and the average low-beam illumination distance grew from 180 to 200 feet.

The Bronco’s main competitor, the Jeep Wrangler, also faces safety issues. Due to its removable doors and roof panels design, it lacks side curtain airbags, an important safety feature in rollover crashes. The Wrangler also earned a marginal score in IIHS’ small front overlap crash test as well as marginal or poor ratings for its headlight systems.

Ford’s Bronco should not be confused with the smaller Ford Bronco Sport, which earned IIHS’s Top Safety Pick Plus award.

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