For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Nissan Rogue are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Ford Bronco doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
The Nissan Rogue has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Bronco doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Rogue Platinum has a standard front seat center airbag, which deploys between the driver and front passenger, protecting them from injuries caused by striking each other in serious side impacts. The Bronco doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Rogue has standard Rear Automatic Braking that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The Bronco doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Rogue’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the Bronco and is not available with Base.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Rogue has a standard rear 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. Rear cross-path warning costs extra on the Bronco and isn't available on the not available.
For better protection of the passenger compartment, the Rogue uses safety cell construction with a three-dimensional high-strength frame that surrounds the passenger compartment. It provides extra impact protection and a sturdy mounting location for door hardware and side impact beams. The Bronco uses a body-on-frame design, which has no frame members above the floor of the vehicle.
Both the Rogue and the Bronco have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, rearview cameras, available all wheel drive and around view monitors.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the general design of front seat head restraints for their ability to protect front seat occupants from whiplash injuries. The IIHS also performs a dynamic test on those seats with “good” or “acceptable” geometry. In these ratings, the Rogue with standard seats is safer than the Bronco:
|
Rogue |
Bronco |
Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Head Restraint Design |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Dynamic Test Rating |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Seat Design |
Pass |
Pass |
Torso Acceleration |
13.1 g’s |
13.8 g’s |
Neck Force Rating |
Low |
Medium |
Max Neck Shearing Force |
0 |
132 |
Max Neck Tension |
439 |
770 |
(Lower numerical results are better in all tests.)
For its top level performance in IIHS driver and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, roof strength and head restraint tests, its standard vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention system, its standard vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its standard headlight’s “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Rogue its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 89 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Bronco is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick.”