C/D Safety and Driver Assistance Rating: 
The Escape performed well in government crash testing, and it protects its passengers with a host of safety systems. However, that gear is mostly optional, and the Escape earned mid-level scores from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety[1].
Crash-Test Results
Two agencies evaluate vehicles for crashworthiness in the United States. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rates tested vehicles from 1 to 5 stars in front crash, side crash, and rollover tests. NHTSA also assigns cars an overall rating out of five stars. The non-profit, independent, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) uses a different set of tests to evaluate front and side crashworthiness, roof strength, headlight reach, and ease of child seat installation. IIHS grades cars on a scale from Good to Poor in each test, and awards the cars that perform best across all its tests with Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ honors, the latter of which requires that the vehicle's automated forward-collision-braking system performs well in IIHS's tests.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Test Results
2017 Ford Escape
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Test Results
2017 Ford Escape
| Small Overlap | Moderate Overlap | Side Impact | Roof Strength | Head Restraints and Seats | Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+? |
| Acceptable | Good | Good | Good | Good | No |
Airbags, Child Seats, and Spare Tire Location
As with most two-row vehicles, the Escape features two sets of LATCH anchors mounted on the outboard rear seats; three LATCH tethers are mounted on the backs of all three seats. Infant- and child-seat installation is easy thanks to tall, wide rear doors, but tall front-seat occupants may note a lack of legroom when seated in front of a rear-facing infant seat.
Active Safety Features
Ford offers a bevy of active-safety features[2], but even in the top trim level, all except blind-spot monitoring and reverse parking sensors are optional. Adaptive cruise control is available as a standalone option in the Titanium model[3] (it's not available in lower trim levels), and it includes Ford's pre-collision braking, which prepares the brakes if th e car's warning system senses an imminent collision. Lane-keeping assist and lane-departure warning are available in a package that also includes self-parking features. Our tests of the parking-assist option revealed its performance to be spotty and unreliable, but the lane-keeping system worked as expected.
Backup Camera
| Gridlines integrated in backup camera view? | Do gridlines move with steering wheel? | Does volume of audio system reduce when reverse is selected? | |
| 2017 Ford Escape Titanium | Yes | Yes | Yes |
In Depth: 2017 Ford Escape
References
- ^ Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (blog.caranddriver.com)
- ^ bevy of active-safety features (blog.caranddriver.com)
- ^ Titanium model (www.caranddriver.com)
