What are the 2025 safest pickup trucks?

Every year, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) releases its Top Safety Pick (TSP) award winners. And, every year, the criteria get more stringent for vehicles to live up to the new standards. Thus, it should come as no surprise, there are very few pickup trucks that make the cut. In fact, the 2025 safest pickup trucks list consists of just two trucks: The Rivian R1T and the Toyota Tundra. Ouch.

How did these two trucks make the list? Let’s dig into the IIHS TSP award criteria and how these two trucks scored. For the record, Toyota Tundra has been a top scorer in the IIHS crash tests since its redesign in 2022.

What’s the criteria?

For 2025, to make the Top Safety Pick + category, vehicles need to get a good rating in the three current and updated tests from IIHS: small overlap front test, updated moderate overlap front test, updated side test. Then for standard headlights and pedestrian front crash prevention, the vehicle needs either a good or acceptable score.

In the Top Safety Pick category, the primary difference is that you can get a good or acceptable rating in the updated moderate overlap front test. Everything else is the same as the TSP+ category.

2025 safest pickup trucks

For 2025, IIHS essentially deems the 2025 Toyota Tundra crew cab pickup the safest truck out there because it gets the coveted TSP+ award. Because the Toyota Tundra was all-new in 2022, IIHS uses the 2022 and 2025 truck for various tests for the 2025 award year. Even with the updated crash tests, Tundra manages good ratings in virtually all the tests.

The only place the Tundra missed the mark: the driver and front passenger leg/foot injury is measured at acceptable or marginal, depending on the test. It gets acceptable ratings for both headlights and front crash prevention.

While the Rivian R1T does really well in most tests, it does get a couple dings – one of which drops it off the TSP+ criteria: It only gets an acceptable rating in the updated moderate overlap front test. You may scroll down and see it gets mostly good ratings for that test, but the problem is with the rear passenger restraints. The rear dummy’s lap belt moves from the pelvis to the abdomen, which increases the risk of abdominal injuries. Therefore, it only gets a marginal score for that line item, which drops the overall score for that test to acceptable.

Otherwise, the R1T gets a lot of good ratings for all the other tests. We see an acceptable score for the structure and safety cage, as well as the rear passenger head protection and head lights. But that’s it.

Why aren’t there more trucks that make the cut?

There are two reasons: either they haven’t been tested or they got less than acceptable ratings. In the case of the GMC Sierra and Chevy Silverado, they get a marginal rating in the small front overlap test, which automatically knocks it off the awards list without the updated test. But the Silverado also gets poor ratings for the updated moderate front overlap test and its headlights.

The Ford F-150 got a poor rating on the updated moderate overlap front test, and the Ram 1500 simply hasn’t been tested.

Our take on the 2025 safest pickup trucks

We say this every year: Just because the truck you’re looking at doesn’t make the list doesn’t mean it’s unsafe. Automakers include a lot of mandatory safety equipment, as seen in the above TikTok, to make trucks safer than they’ve ever been.

However, if safety is your priority because your truck doubles as a family hauler, you would do well to dig into all the safety ratings – especially for back seat passengers.