Both the Nautilus and Highlander 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 Highlander’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 Lincoln Nautilus 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 Highlander doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Nautilus. But it costs extra on the Highlander.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Nautilus has standard Cross-Traffic Alert with Rear Cross Traffic Braking, systems which detect vehicles approaching from the sides and can automatically apply the brakes to prevent a collision. Only the Highlander Limited/Platinum offers Parking Support Brake.
Both the Nautilus and the Highlander 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.