For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo XC60 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 Acura RDX doesn’t offer pretensioners for the rear seat belts.
The XC60’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The RDX doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the XC60 and RDX have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The XC60 has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The RDX’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The Volvo XC60 offers optional built in child booster seats. They’re more crash worthy than an added child seat because of their direct attachment to the seat. Acura doesn’t offer the convenience and security of a built-in child booster seat in the RDX. Their owners must carry a heavy booster seat in and out of the vehicle; XC60 owners can just fold their built-in child seat up or down.
The XC60 has a standard Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS), which use a specially designed seat to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the WHIPS allows the backrest to travel backwards to cushion the occupants and the headrests move forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. At the same time the pretensioning seatbelts fire, removing slack from the belts. The RDX doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The XC60 has standard Automatic Braking After Collision, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The RDX doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the XC60 has a standard cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Cross-path warning costs extra on the RDX.
The XC60’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The RDX doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the XC60 and the RDX have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front wheel drive, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, 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 all wheel drive and around view monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Volvo XC60 is safer than the Acura RDX:
|
|
XC60 |
RDX |
| OVERALL STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
|
|
Driver |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
| HIC |
125 |
300 |
| Neck Injury Risk |
22% |
26% |
| Neck Stress |
198 lbs. |
262 lbs. |
| Neck Compression |
15 lbs. |
23 lbs. |
|
|
Passenger |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
| HIC |
178 |
353 |
| Chest Compression |
.5 inches |
.6 inches |
| Neck Injury Risk |
28% |
30% |
| Neck Compression |
55 lbs. |
84 lbs. |
| Leg Forces (l/r) |
329/351 lbs. |
362/441 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.