The V60 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 Escape doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the V60 Cross Country and Escape have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The V60 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 Escape’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 Cross Country 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 Escape doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the V60 Cross Country. But it costs extra on the Escape.
When descending a steep, off-road slope, the V60 Cross Country’s standard Hill Descent Control allows you to creep down safely. The Escape doesn’t offer Hill Descent Control.
Both the V60 Cross Country and the Escape have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver 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, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning and driver alert monitors.
The Volvo V60 Cross Country weighs 579 to 839 pounds more than the Ford Escape. The NHTSA advises that heavier cars are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Volvo V60 Cross Country is safer than the Ford Escape:
|
V60 Cross Country |
Escape |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
103 |
197 |
Chest Movement |
.9 inches |
.9 inches |
Hip Force |
212 lbs. |
240 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Hip Force |
575 lbs. |
816 lbs. |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
319 |
344 |
Spine Acceleration |
29 G’s |
32 G’s |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the V60 Cross Country, with its five-star roll-over rating, is 7% to 7.5% less likely to roll over than the Escape, which received a four-star rating.
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 Cross Country its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 131 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Escape is only a standard “Top Safety Pick” for 2022.