The Safest SUVs from Honda

Drivers shopping for the safest SUVs in the Detroit area come to Detroit Area Honda Dealers, often telling us that when they think of safety, they think Honda. While SUVs used to have a poor reputation for safety, innovations in accident prevention and mitigation features and overall SUV design have made vehicles like the Honda Pilot, CR-V, and HR-V some of the safest cars on the road.

Read on to find out what it is that makes our Honda vehicles some of the safest SUVs and to see how they fared in crash safety tests.

Safety Features on All Honda SUVs

Honda has been working hard to give their vehicles one of the most advanced profiles of standard and available features on the market, and that includes safety amenities. Drivers can expect standard safety features like these on Honda SUVs:

Traction control
Stability control
Three-point seat belts
Active head restraints
Front and side curtain airbags

Each model also comes with a multi-angle rearview camera. Shift into reverse and take advantage of three different views of what’s behind your vehicle before backing up. Using these features as a baseline is what gives the Honda lineup some of the safest SUVs on the market.

Safety Ratings

There are two main organizations that score vehicles like these for safety: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Both groups test vehicles for crash safety, but they also evaluate other aspects of modern vehicles to let drivers know which ones are some of the safest SUVs.

While the 5-star system of the NHTSA is pretty straightforward, in order for a vehicle to earn a Top Safety Pick from the IIHS, it must earn scores of “good” or higher in their crash tests as well as have a basic rating for front crash prevention (Top Safety Pick+ requires “advanced” or “superior” levels of front crash prevention).

Here’s how the Honda SUVs fared:

2016 HR-V

The HR-V earned a 5-star Overall Vehicle Safety Rating from the NHTSA and was named to Kelley Blue Book’s Best Safety Rated SUVs of 2016.

Learn More About the Honda HR-V

2016 CR-V

The CR-V scored a 5-star Overall Vehicle Safety Rating from the NHTSA, was on Kelley Blue Book’s Best Safety Rated SUVs of 2016 list, and models equipped with the Honda Sensing frontal crash prevention technology scored a 2016 Top Safety Pick+ from the IIHS.

Learn More About the Honda CR-V

2016 Pilot

The Pilot earned 5 stars in the Overall Vehicle Safety Rating category from the NHTSA, made its way onto Kelley Blue Book’s Best Safety Rated SUVs of 2016 list, and models equipped with Honda Sensing have been awarded a 2016 Top Safety Pick+ by the IIHS.

Learn More About the Honda Pilot

To put things in perspective with competing crossovers and SUVs, even when a vehicle like the 2016 Nissan Rogue’s safety features come close to the CR-V, it still has a tough time earning the same recognition from crash testing organizations—the IIHS ranked 2016 Honda CR-V models with forward collision warning systems as 2016 Top Safety Pick+ models while the Rogue only manages Top Safety Pick.

What Is Honda Sensing?

You might have heard of the Honda Sensing suite of safety features before reading about these new vehicles here, but we think it’s important to go over just what those safety features entail for anyone who isn’t quite sure what makes them so advanced:

Forward Collision Warning: Through a combination of radar and camera systems, select Honda vehicles can sense when a frontal collision is likely and warn you to attempt to avoid it.

Collision Mitigation Braking: The available collision mitigation braking system is able to respond to possible collision threats and apply the brakes if it senses that the driver hasn’t slowed down enough.

Lane Keeping Assist: By monitoring the markings on the road, the vehicle can tell when you start to drift and actually adjust wheel position to keep you in the current lane.

Road Departure Mitigation: The same systems that watch for forward collisions and lane departure can detect objects on the side of the road and work to prevent you from leaving the pavement.

Adaptive Cruise Control: By monitoring the speed of the vehicles around you, the Honda Sensing–equipped SUV can adjust cruising speeds to adapt to the flow of traffic.

No advanced safety measures are a replacement for attentive driving, but with features like these, you can be sure that your SUV has your back. Honda Sensing features are found on CR-V Touring models and are available on Pilot EX, EX-L, Touring, and Elite models.

Finding the Safest SUV

It can be tough to find the safest SUV that also fits your family’s needs, but we can help. Visit a Detroit Area Honda Dealer near you today to get a look at one of these three SUV options. We can put you behind the wheel of one, two, or all three of them to help you find out which one is right for you and your family. If you’re unsure of where to start, we suggest the CR-V, as it’s smaller and sportier than the Pilot but larger and more capable of handling towing and hauling than the HR-V.

Detroit Area Honda Dealers 42.199894, -83.207115.