2014 Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra are the Safest Trucks in the Land (Video)

This National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s New Car Assessment Program was first launched for the 2011 model year vehicles and with both the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 scoring a perfect five star overall safety score, these two new GM trucks have proved to be safer in crash tests than the Ram 1500, the Ford F150, the Toyota Tundra and the Nissan Titan.

While the modern process of designing and engineering a pickup puts a tremendous amount of focus on making the vehicles lighter – which in turn improves both fuel economy and performance – the designers and engineers of the 2014 Silverado and Sierra had to also make sure that these half ton pickups were as safe as possible. Both trucks call upon a fully boxed frame (which has become all but standard in the modern half ton truck segment) to provide as much support as possible and the use of high strength steel throughout the body and frame make these trucks lighter without making them extremely heavy.

The structural design of the new Chevrolet and GMC 1500 trucks plays a big part in their success in the NHTSA testing process but General Motors’ long list of standard and available safety system helps to seal the deal for the feds. Some features such as six standard airbags, lap belt pretensioners and an advanced 4 wheel disc brake setup with ABS have become very common among all new vehicles but high tech features like a rear vision camera system with dynamic guidelines, Forward Collision Warning and Lane Departure Warning have been added as well. Finally, to help make things safer for those 2014 Silverado and Sierra owners who do a lot of towing, GM now offers an advanced trailer sway control that works with the StabiliTrak stability control system to prevent any dangerous conditions while pulling a trailer.

It should be noted that this first batch of results for the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra apply only to 1500 Crew Cab models. The NHTSA has not tested the other cab configurations but with GM expecting that the Crew Cab will account for roughly 60% of 2014 half ton truck sales, the majority of new Silverado and Sierra buyers will be able to say that they drive the safest truck sold in America…at least until Ford, Toyota, Ram or Nissan are able to make the changes needed to allow one of their half ton pickups to also receive a perfect five star overall score.

To celebrate the perfect score, General Motors has even offered up a short clip of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado partaking in one of the crash tests. Enjoy.