For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo V90 Cross Country 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 its rear seat belts.
The V90 Cross Country’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 V90 Cross Country and RDX have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The V90 Cross Country 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 V90 Cross Country 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; V90 Cross Country owners can just fold their built-in child seat up or down.
The V90 Cross Country has a standard Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS), which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the WHIPS moves the headrests 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 V90 Cross Country has standard Post-impact braking, 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.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The V90 Cross Country has standard CTA Auto Brake that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The RDX doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the V90 Cross Country. But it costs extra on the RDX.
Both the V90 Cross Country and RDX have rear cross-traffic warning, but the V90 Cross Country has Braking Intervention (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The RDX’s Rear Cross Traffic Monitor doesn’t automatically brake.
The V90 Cross Country’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 V90 Cross Country and the RDX have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee 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, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras and rear cross-path warning.