Both the Santa Fe and CR-V have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Santa Fe 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 CR-V’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.
With its standard Forward Collision Avoidance Assist, the Hyundai Santa Fe is better at preventing collisions with pedestrians than the Honda CR-V, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:
|
Santa Fe |
CR-V |
Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
|
Crossing Child - DAY |
|
12 MPH |
AVOIDED |
-10 MPH |
25 MPH |
AVOIDED |
-18 MPH |
|
Crossing Adult - NIGHT |
|
12 MPH Brights |
AVOIDED |
AVOIDED |
12 MPH Low beams |
AVOIDED |
No Slowing |
25 MPH Low beams |
AVOIDED |
-17 MPH |
|
Parallel Adult - NIGHT |
|
25 MPH Brights |
AVOIDED |
AVOIDED |
25 MPH Low beams |
AVOIDED |
No Slowing |
37 MPH Brights |
AVOIDED |
-33 MPH |
37 MPH Low beams |
AVOIDED |
No Slowing |
Warning Issued-Low beams |
1.4 sec |
No Warning |
The Santa Fe Limited/Calligraphy has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The CR-V 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.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Santa Fe has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Rear cross-path warning is not offered on the CR-VLX and the CR-V’s Cross Traffic Monitor does not include automatic braking.
Both the Santa Fe and the CR-V have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front and rear side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, front wheel drive, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, driver alert monitors and available all wheel drive.
The Hyundai Santa Fe weighs 417 to 1014 pounds more than the Honda CR-V. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.