For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo XC60 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 Mazda CX-50 doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The XC60’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The CX-50 doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the XC60 and CX-50 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The XC60 Plus/Ultimate/Polestar 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 CX-50’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 XC60 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. Mazda doesn’t offer the convenience and security of a built-in child booster seat in the CX-50. Their owners must carry a heavy booster seat in and out of the vehicle; XC60 owners can just fold their built-in child seat up or down.
Using vehicle speed sensors and seat sensors, smart airbags in the XC60 deploy with different levels of force or don’t deploy at all to help better protect passengers of all sizes in different collisions. The XC60’s side airbags will shut off if a child is leaning against the door. The CX-50’s side airbags don’t have smart features and will always deploy full force.
The XC60 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 CX-50 doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The XC60 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 CX-50 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.
When descending a steep, off-road slope, the XC60’s standard Hill Descent Control allows you to creep down safely. The CX-50 doesn’t offer Hill Descent Control.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the XC60 has standard Cross Traffic Alert with Braking Intervention, systems which detect vehicles approaching from the sides and can automatically apply the brakes to prevent a collision. Only the CX-50 Turbo Premium Plus offers Rear Cross Traffic Braking.
Both the XC60 and the CX-50 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, 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, driver alert monitors and available around view monitors.