In a recent announcement, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) awarded the all-new 2025 Mazda CX-70 its prestigious 2024 TOP SAFETY PICK distinction. This recognition underscores Mazda's unwavering commitment to engineering vehicles that prioritize passenger protection and provide drivers with the confidence to navigate the roads with peace of mind.
IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK Award: A Benchmark for Collision Avoidance and Driver Assistance
The coveted IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK award is a highly sought-after designation in the automotive industry. It acknowledges vehicles that excel in a battery of rigorous crashworthiness tests designed to mimic real-world accident scenarios and assess a car's ability to safeguard its occupants. These tests include:
- Small overlap front crash test: This challenging test simulates a situation where the driver's side front corner of the car collides with a solid barrier at high speed. The IIHS considers this test to be one of the most difficult due to the concentrated force exerted on a smaller area of the vehicle.
- Moderate overlap front crash test: This test replicates a more common head-on collision with another vehicle at moderate speed. It evaluates the car's ability to protect passengers in a more balanced frontal impact scenario.
- Side impact crash test: This test assesses a vehicle's structural integrity and its ability to absorb impact forces in a side collision with another car, a scenario that can be particularly dangerous for occupants.
- Headlight effectiveness: The IIHS evaluates headlights for their ability to adequately illuminate the road ahead, ensuring good visibility for drivers during nighttime or low-light conditions. Poor headlight performance can significantly limit a driver's ability to detect potential hazards on the road, increasing the risk of accidents.
- Front crash prevention: This evaluation examines a car's advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and their effectiveness in detecting potential frontal collisions with other vehicles or pedestrians. The IIHS assesses the system's ability to warn the driver of impending danger and automatically apply brakes to mitigate the severity of an accident or, ideally, prevent it altogether.
To qualify for the prestigious 2024 TOP SAFETY PICK award, vehicles must achieve "good" ratings in all the aforementioned crashworthiness tests. They must also be equipped with headlights that are rated "acceptable" or "good" across all trim levels and demonstrate "acceptable" or "good" performance in pedestrian front crash prevention, highlighting the importance of protecting vulnerable road users.