For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Nissan Rogue are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Ford Bronco doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
The Nissan Rogue 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 Bronco doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Rogue Platinum has a standard 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 Bronco doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Rogue has standard Rear Automatic Braking that use rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a collision. The Bronco doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Rogue’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the Bronco.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Rogue has standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert, helping the driver avoid collisions. Ford charges extra for Cross Traffic Alert on the Bronco.
For better protection of the passenger compartment, the Rogue uses safety cell construction with a three-dimensional high-strength frame that surrounds the passenger compartment. It provides extra impact protection and a sturdy mounting location for door hardware and side impact beams. The Bronco uses a body-on-frame design, which has no frame members above the floor of the vehicle.
Both the Rogue and the Bronco have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, rearview cameras, available all wheel drive and around view monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Nissan Rogue is safer than the Ford Bronco:
|
|
Rogue |
Bronco |
|
|
Driver |
|
| STARS |
4 Stars |
4 Stars |
| Leg Forces (l/r) |
70/234 lbs. |
412/133 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the general design of front seat head restraints for their ability to protect front seat occupants from whiplash injuries. The IIHS also performs a dynamic test on those seats with “good” or “acceptable” geometry. In these ratings, the Rogue with standard seats is safer than the Bronco:
|
|
Rogue |
Bronco |
| Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
| Head Restraint Design |
GOOD |
GOOD |
| Dynamic Test Rating |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
| Seat Design |
Pass |
Pass |
| Torso Acceleration |
13.1 g’s |
13.8 g’s |
| Neck Force Rating |
Low |
Medium |
| Max Neck Shearing Force |
0 |
132 |
| Max Neck Tension |
439 |
770 |
(Lower numerical results are better in all tests.)
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Rogue, with its four-star roll-over rating, is 7.7% less likely to roll over than the Bronco, which received a three-star rating.