For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo V60 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 Alfa Romeo Stelvio doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The V60’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Stelvio doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the V60 and Stelvio have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The V60 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 Stelvio’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 V60 has a standard Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS), which use a specially designed seat to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the WHIPS allows the backrest to travel backwards to cushion the occupants and the headrests move forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. At the same time the pretensioning seatbelts fire, removing slack from the belts. The Stelvio doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The V60 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 Stelvio 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 V60 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 Stelvio doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the V60. But it costs extra on the Stelvio.
The V60 has a standard 360° Camera to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Stelvio only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
Both the V60 and Stelvio have rear cross-traffic warning, but the V60 has Braking Intervention (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The Stelvio’s Rear Cross-Path Detection doesn’t automatically brake.
Both the V60 and the Stelvio 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.
The Volvo V60 weighs 488 to 594 pounds more than the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. The NHTSA advises that heavier cars are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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, with its optional vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its standard headlight’s “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the V60 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 131 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Stelvio has not been tested, yet.