For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Hyundai Santa Cruz 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 GMC Canyon doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The Santa Cruz has standard Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist, 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 Canyon offers an available collision warning system without the automated brake feature that would prevent or reduce the collision if the driver fails to react.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Santa Cruz SEL/SEL Premium/Limited has standard Parking Collision Avoidance Assist that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Canyon doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Santa Cruz’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 Canyon and is not available with Elevation Standard.
The Santa Cruz Limited has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Canyon only offers a rear monitor and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the front or sides.
The Santa Cruz has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. Only the Canyon offers a system to reveal objects in its blind spot.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Santa Cruz’s standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning uses sensors in the rear to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. The Canyon doesn’t offer a rear cross-path warning system.
The Santa Cruz’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 Canyon doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
For better protection of the passenger compartment, the Santa Cruz 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 Canyon uses a body-on-frame design, which has no frame members above the floor of the vehicle.
Both the Santa Cruz and the Canyon have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, daytime running lights, rearview cameras and available all wheel drive.
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 “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Santa Cruz the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2022, a rating granted to only 174 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Canyon last would have qualified as a “Top Safety Pick” in 2016.