For the third consecutive year, Mazda's entire lineup has aced the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's crash tests. All cars — the Mazda 3 in both sedan and hatchback form, as well as CX-30, CX-5, and CX-9 SUVs — scored a Top Safety Pick+ award, the highest accolade issued by the IIHS.
The IIHS conducts six tests on each car — a moderate overlap front crash, two small overlap front crashes for both driver and passenger, a side impact crash, a roof strength crush evaluation, and a head restraint test using just the car seat. The results are ranked out of four levels, with a green "Good" marker indicating the top tier. Mazda says that the CX-5, which is already 5 years and remains essentially unchanged since its 2017 intro, was the first car to receive a "Good" in the IIHS's tougher side impact test, something that won't factor into the results until 2023.
However, a field of green results isn't enough to earn IIHS's uppermost ranking. Mazda also received good marks for its standard automatic forward collision warning and braking, which was effective in tests to prevent contact with other vehicles, adult pedestrians, and children. Mazdas also received maximum ratings for its child seat LATCH system. The only area where Mazda fell slightly short was in models that were not equipped with curve-adaptive headlamps, which include lower trims on 3 and CX-5 models. There, Mazda received the second-from-top "Acceptable" ratings.
It should come as no surprise that its cars fared similarly. Currently, the carmaker has just two platforms. Both body styles of the 3 share common underpinnings with the CX-30, while the CX-5 and CX-9 are based on the same underlying structure. The next Mazda platforms to come out will be based on a new front-engined, rear-wheel-drive architecture. That's when things will start to get really interesting, regardless of what they achieve on crash tests.
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