For enhanced safety, the front and second-row seat shoulder belts of the Lincoln Aviator have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Cadillac Escalade doesn’t offer pretensioners for its second-row seat belts.
Both the Aviator and Escalade have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Aviator 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 Escalade’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 Aviator has standard Post Collision Braking, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Escalade doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
For better protection of the passenger compartment, the Aviator 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 Escalade uses a body-on-frame design, which has no frame members above the floor of the vehicle.
Both the Aviator and the Escalade have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger 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, blind spot warning systems, around view monitors, rear cross-path warning, driver alert monitors and available all wheel drive.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Lincoln Aviator is safer than the Cadillac Escalade:
|
|
Aviator |
Escalade |
| OVERALL STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
|
|
Driver |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
125 |
146 |
| Neck Stress |
167 lbs. |
312 lbs. |
| Neck Compression |
26 lbs. |
51 lbs. |
|
|
Passenger |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
| Chest Compression |
.4 inches |
.6 inches |
| Neck Injury Risk |
29.2% |
47% |
| Neck Stress |
187 lbs. |
272 lbs. |
| Leg Forces (l/r) |
380/405 lbs. |
333/811 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Lincoln Aviator is safer than the Cadillac Escalade:
|
|
Aviator |
Escalade |
|
|
Rear Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
86 |
88 |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Max Damage Depth |
12 inches |
14 inches |
| Hip Force |
573 lbs. |
764 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Aviator, with its four-star roll-over rating, is 6.1% to 7.2% less likely to roll over than the Escalade, which received a three-star rating.