In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Crown Signia are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The A5 Sportback doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Crown Signia Limited offers an optional Parking Support Brake that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The A5 Sportback doesn’t offer automatic braking for stationary objects directly to the rear.
The Crown Signia has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the A5 Sportback’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Crown Signia has standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert and optional Parking Support Brake on the Limited automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Audi charges extra for Rear Cross-Traffic Assist on the A5 Sportback.
The Crown Signia’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The A5 Sportback doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Crown Signia and the A5 Sportback have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and available around view monitors.
The Toyota Crown Signia weighs 451 to 484 pounds more than the Audi A5 Sportback. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.