For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Ford Bronco doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the Santa Fe Hybrid and Bronco have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Santa Fe Hybrid 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 Bronco’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 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid has a standard driver’s side knee airbag mounted low on the dashboard. The knee airbag helps prevent the driver from sliding under the seatbelts or the main frontal airbag; this keeps the driver better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. A knee airbag also helps keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Bronco doesn’t offer knee airbags.
In a Vehicle-to-Vehicle Frontal Crash Prevention 2.0 test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid achieved a “Good” rating - the highest possible - for its performance in forward collision warning and automatic braking systems, demonstrating its excellent capabilities in preventing collisions. The Ford Bronco has not been tested.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Santa Fe Hybrid Limited/Calligraphy has standard Parking Collision Avoidance Assist that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Bronco doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Santa Fe Hybrid has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Only the Bronco Big Bend/Outer Banks/Badlands/Stroppe/Raptor/Heritage offers Cross Traffic Alert and the Bronco’s Cross Traffic Alert does not include automatic braking.
For better protection of the passenger compartment, the Santa Fe Hybrid 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 Bronco uses a body-on-frame design, which has no frame members above the floor of the vehicle.
Both the Santa Fe Hybrid and the Bronco have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, rearview cameras, available all wheel drive and around view monitors.
The Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid (built after November 2024) has achieved the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) highest rating of “Top Safety Pick Plus” for the 2025 model year. This distinction is based on its exceptional performance in IIHS’ rigorous battery of safety tests. Specifically, it earned a “Good” rating in the latest, more stringent moderate overlap front crash test, a “Good” result in the updated side impact test, and a “Good” score in the revised pedestrian crash prevention test. The Bronco is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick” for 2025.