In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Venue are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Encore doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Venue has standard Forward Collision-Avoidance Assistance, which use forward mounted sensors to warn the driver of a possible collision ahead. If the driver doesn’t react and the system determines a collision is imminent, it automatically applies the brakes at full-force in order to reduce the force of the crash or avoid it altogether. The Encore offers an available collision warning system without the automated brake feature that would prevent or reduce the collision if the driver fails to react.
The Venue’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane and gently nudges the vehicle back towards its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the Encore.
The Venue’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 Encore doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Venue and the Encore have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, front wheel drive, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, rearview cameras, available daytime running lights, blind spot warning systems and rear cross-path warning.
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 Hyundai Venue is safer than the Buick Encore:
|
|
Venue |
Encore |
|
|
Front Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Hip Force |
275 lbs. |
388 lbs. |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Max Damage Depth |
12 inches |
14 inches |
| HIC |
343 |
382 |
| Spine Acceleration |
42 G’s |
46 G’s |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Venue is 3.6% to 5.5% less likely to roll over than the Encore.
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 available headlight’s “Acceptable” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Venue the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2022, a rating granted to only 175 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Encore last would have qualified as a “Top Safety Pick” in 2016.