2022 Acura MDX earns IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award

SEE ALSO: IIHS 2021 TOP SAFETY PICKS

The 2022 Acura MDX, a midsize luxury SUV, earns a Top Safety Pick+ award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety with a standard front crash prevention system that earns superior ratings in vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations.

To qualify for Top Safety Pick+, the higher of the Institute’s two awards, vehicles must earn good ratings in all six IIHS crashworthiness evaluations, including the driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests. They must also be available with a front crash prevention system that earns advanced or superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations, and good or acceptable headlights must be standard on all models, regardless of trim level.

The MDX, which comes equipped with good-rated LED projector headlights and Acura’s Collision Mitigation Braking System across all trims, meets all those benchmarks. The standard front crash prevention system either avoided collisions or slowed substantially to mitigate the force of impact in the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian tests, earning superior ratings for both types of protection.

The SUV also earns the highest rating of good+ for its child-restraint attachment (LATCH) system, which includes three rear seating positions with complete LATCH hardware and two additional seating positions with upper tether hooks.