March 19, 2026
The Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster, Chevrolet Express, and Mercedes Sprinter collectively deliver most of the packages that arrive at American doorsteps. None of them has ever received a formal safety rating.
That changes this year. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced it will begin publishing safety ratings for commercial vehicles, starting with cargo vans and Class 3 pickups (those weighing 10,001 to 14,000 pounds GVWR). Occupant protection evaluations are expected this spring, with crash avoidance technology results following later in 2026. This marks a significant expansion in the IIHS ratings program that has transformed passenger vehicle safety standards for three decades.
The Safety Equipment Gap
| Safety Feature | Passenger Vehicles (<10,000 lbs) | Commercial Vehicles (10,001–14,000 lbs) |
|---|---|---|
| Front airbags | Required (federal) | Not required |
| Side airbags | Near-universal (IIHS-driven) | Rarely equipped |
| AEB (auto emergency braking) | Required by 2029 (NHTSA rule) | No federal requirement |
| Forward collision warning | Near-universal | Varies by manufacturer |
| Lane departure warning | Widespread | Rare |
| IIHS safety rating | Since 1995 | Never (until 2026) |
The Regulatory Gap
The gap IIHS is filling is enormous and largely invisible to the public. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards do not require airbags in commercial vehicles above 10,000 pounds GVWR. They do not require automatic emergency braking. The occupants of these vehicles, overwhelmingly commercial drivers and delivery workers, operate in a safety framework that has not kept pace with the passenger car standards that the same IIHS ratings helped transform over the past three decades.
Commercial vehicle occupant fatalities have been rising even as passenger vehicle deaths have stabilized. The vehicles themselves are not inherently more dangerous, but the absence of now-standard safety technologies (front and side airbags, forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking) means their occupants face higher injury severity in comparable crashes.
The IIHS commercial program will initially evaluate the same metrics that transformed the passenger car market: structural integrity in frontal and side impacts, head restraint effectiveness, and the presence and performance of active safety systems. Top Safety Pick awards will be assigned to vehicles meeting performance thresholds. The institute plans to expand testing to box trucks and potentially tractor-trailers as the program matures.
Fleet Implications
The ratings will matter most to fleet operators, who purchase commercial vehicles in bulk and increasingly face pressure from insurers, regulators, and their own risk management teams to demonstrate safety compliance. Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and their competitors operate tens of thousands of cargo vans. When IIHS publishes its first round of results, fleet procurement decisions will have a new data point that did not previously exist.
For manufacturers, the ratings create competitive pressure to add safety equipment that is currently optional. If the Ford Transit earns a Top Safety Pick and the Chevrolet Express does not, the purchasing calculus for a fleet buying 5,000 units shifts. IIHS has used exactly this dynamic in the passenger car market for decades, and automakers have consistently responded by raising their safety equipment standards to earn the ratings that influence buyer decisions.
The commercial vehicle safety gap has persisted because nobody with credibility was measuring it publicly. That excuse just expired.
