For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Infiniti QX55 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 Chevrolet Blazer doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The Infiniti QX55 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 Blazer doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The QX55 has standard Rear Automatic Braking that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Blazer doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the QX55. But it costs extra on the Blazer.
The QX55 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 and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the Blazer’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the QX55 has standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert, helping the driver avoid collisions. Chevrolet charges extra for Rear Cross Traffic Alert on the Blazer.
Both the QX55 and the Blazer 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, rearview cameras and available around view monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Infiniti QX55 is safer than the Chevrolet Blazer:
|
QX55 |
Blazer |
|
Passenger |
|
STARS |
4 Stars |
4 Stars |
HIC |
285 |
313 |
Neck Injury Risk |
37% |
43% |
Neck Compression |
78 lbs. |
140 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.