As motorcyclists, one thing I think we can all agree on is that we like the feeling of engaging with our vehicles. There's a level of involvement in riding that you just don't get in the average car. It's different with enthusiast cars, of course, as those usually offer a more engaging driving experience than, say, your bog standard Nissan Altima.
To say that most riders and most drivers look for different experiences in their motorbikes and cars is an understatement. And yet, in 2025, more motorcycles (generally pricier, high-end ones) are starting to have car-like advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). But cars, of course, have had these for ages.
They got a bit of a head start in this area, including development of sophisticated front- and rear-end collision detection, aimed at helping to prevent more crashes if drivers didn't react in time. Because they got a head start, you might reasonably expect that these systems would be pretty far along in their development in 2025, right?
Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. According to the latest report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, while front crash protection has gotten better in some respects, there's still one area where it's significantly lacking. Since this is RideApart, I'm sure you've probably figured out by now what that area is.
According to the IIHS, "rear impacts account for more than 200 motorcyclist deaths per year." In other words, those are riders who've been hit from behind by cars or trucks. Also, it's worth noting that this report makes no mention of riders who don't die, but who are seriously injured in rear impacts (and possibly in life-altering ways).
The report lists the results for 30 vehicles; most are 2025 model year, while a scant few are 2024. Systems received one of four ratings on the IIHS scale: Good, Acceptable, Marginal, or Poor. About 15 of the vehicles received a Good rating, while six were deemed Acceptable. Only one, the 2023-2024 Ford Expedition, was graded as Marginal. A full seven vehicles were noted to be Poor, and while you might expect these to be more budget-friendly models, the first two in this category are the 2025 Audi Q7 and Q8. So, good front crash prevention isn't necessarily correlated to the cost of the vehicle, going by these IIHS test results.
Systems rated "Good" apparently did mostly well in detecting motorcycles and not crashing into them. However, some did still hit the motorcycles in the tests, although the IIHS notes that they "slowed substantially before impact." Uh, thanks for only hitting me at 20 mph instead of 45, I guess?
But for the half of this list that didn't score a "Good" rating, motorcycles were the biggest problem for the front crash detection systems to, well, detect. And if it was me naming these categories, I wouldn't be using the word "Acceptable" to describe what I'm about to tell you.
See, the IIHS notes that all the vehicles on this list that scored an "Acceptable" grade "failed to prevent a collision with the motorcycle target in the 43mph test scenarios, in some cases hitting the target at speeds of more than 25mph."
Yikes. You call that "Acceptable," IIHS? Do you even know any motorcyclists?
And if that performance is considered "Acceptable," that probably makes you queasily want to know what the vehicles rated "Marginal" or "Poor" did, right?
While there's no specific note about our one "Marginal" vehicle, the report contains the following, chilling line about the vehicles that received a "Poor" rating. I'll just quote the whole thing here and let you read it for yourself.
"All the poor-rated vehicles hit the motorcycle target in the slowest, 31 mph test, with the target centered. Some barely reduced speed or did not issue timely warnings."
Here's the thing: Drivers and motorcyclists have shared the road for over a century now. And riders know the risks. But if car drivers are lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that their cars have front crash detection systems and develop an overreliance on them to convey the appropriate warnings to them in time, it makes all of us less safe.
