Both the Nautilus and QX55 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Nautilus 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 QX55’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.
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 Nautilus are reminded to check the back seat. The QX55 doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Nautilus has standard Post Collision Braking, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The QX55 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.
Both the Nautilus and QX55 have rear cross-traffic warning, but the Nautilus has Rear Cross Traffic Braking (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The QX55’s Rear Cross Traffic Alert doesn’t automatically brake.
The Nautilus’ 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 QX55 doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Nautilus and the QX55 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, 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, rear cross-path warning and available all wheel drive.