Each month sees its fair share of new-car safety news, and in case you couldn’t keep on top of it all, we thought we’d go ahead and collect it all into this brief. Check out who’s winning crash-test awards and earning stars.
After putting vehicles through various safety testing, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) awards the safest vehicles with one of two awards — Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+, the latter being the highest accolade. A vehicle needs to earn ‘good’ ratings in six crashworthiness tests that include the driver-side small-overlap front, passenger-side small-overlap front, roof strength, and head restraint tests. The tested vehicle must also be available with a front crash prevention system that need to earn ‘advanced’ or ‘superior’ ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations — IIHS recently released a report claiming many vehicles test poorly in the nighttime pedestrian crash prevention test.
Finally, in order for the vehicle to obtain the Top Safety Pick award, it needs to have one ‘good’ or ‘acceptable’ headlight system available. To earn the top-tier award, the Top Safety Pick+, those ‘good’ or ‘acceptable’ headlight systems need to be standard across all trims.
2023 Mazda CX-50 earns Top Safety Pick+ award
Mazda’s newest addition in Canada has earned a 2022 Top Safety Pick+ award from the IIHS. The 2023 Mazda CX-50 secured superior ratings in the vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations, as well as both good and acceptable ratings for its headlight systems, across all trims.
IIHS also noted that despite it not being a factor for the award, the vehicle gets a good rating for its seatbelt reminders and a good+ rating for the LATCH hardware.
2022-2023 Nissan Pathfinder and 2023 Infiniti QX60 earn Top Safety Pick+ award
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Built on the same platform, the midsize SUVs are both awarded with the IIHS’ highest accolade; however, the award only applies to Pathfinders built after July 2022. Previous to that build date, the Pathfinder didn’t earn a good rating in the head restraints and seats evaluation — the current model received some modification and now meets those requirements.
In the vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations, both SUVs received superior ratings for their standard front crash prevention systems. The Pathfinder has standard acceptable headlights, while the QX60 has two types of headlights, both of which received good ratings.
2022 Toyota Tundra earns Top Safety Pick+ award
Previously, the 2021 Tundra had marginal and poor ratings for the above evaluations. After improved performance in the two small-overlap front crash tests, as well as better standard headlights that got good or acceptable ratings — depending on the trim — the 2022 Toyota Tundra earned the top-tier award.
IIHS also noted the large pickup earns an advanced rating in the nighttime vehicle-to-pedestrian test, which, as previously mentioned, many vehicles failed to achieve — that evaluation is not a requirement for a 2022 award.
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