diff --git a/bin/units b/bin/units
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..4c12226
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bin/units
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# run tests with pipefail to avoid false passes
+# see https://github.com/pelias/pelias/issues/744
+set -o pipefail
+
+node test/run.js | npx tap-spec
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 966f666..4d21a9e 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
   "homepage": "https://github.com/pelias/pbf2json",
   "license": "MIT",
   "scripts": {
-    "units": "node test/run.js | tap-spec",
+    "units": "./bin/units",
     "test": "npm run units",
     "pretest": "test/pretest.sh",
     "end-to-end": "npm run pretest; node test/end-to-end.js;",