For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Nissan Kicks have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision. The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
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 Kicks are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Outlander Sport doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Nissan Kicks 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 Outlander Sport doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
The Kicks SR offers an optional front seat center airbag, which deploys between the driver and front passenger, protecting them from injuries caused by striking each other in serious side impacts. The Outlander Sport doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Kicks has standard Rear Automatic Braking that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Outlander Sport doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Kicks SR has a standard Around View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Outlander Sport only offers a rear monitor and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the front or sides.
The Kicks 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. Only the Outlander Sport SE/SEL offers a blind spot warning system.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Kicks has standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert, helping the driver avoid collisions. Only the Outlander Sport SE/SEL offers Rear Cross Traffic Alert.
The Kicks’ 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 Outlander Sport doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Kicks and the Outlander Sport 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, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and available all wheel drive.