For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Subaru Legacy have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Honda Accord doesn’t offer pretensioners for the rear seat belts.
The Legacy has standard Whiplash-Reducing Front Seats, which use a specially designed seat to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Whiplash-Reducing Front Seats system allows the backrest to travel backwards to cushion the occupants and the headrests move forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The Accord doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The Legacy has all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Accord doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
Both the Legacy and the Accord have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems, rear cross-path warning and driver alert monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Subaru Legacy is safer than the Honda Accord:
|
Legacy |
Accord |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
50 |
140 |
Chest Movement |
.7 inches |
.8 inches |
Hip Force |
335 lbs. |
431 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
220 |
386 |
Spine Acceleration |
62 G’s |
62 G’s |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
104 |
242 |
Hip Force |
681 lbs. |
756 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.