Toronto, Ontario — The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has awarded its highest honour, the Top Safety Pick+, to the 2025 Nissan Murano — a midsize SUV packed with advanced driver assistance systems and high-tech design features aimed at protecting both front and rear passengers.
The Murano’s award highlights its bolstered side-impact crashworthiness and enhanced rear-seat safety design. In particular, Nissan has taken aim at reducing the risk of “submarining” — when rear-seat passengers slide beneath the lap belt in a collision — by integrating a more sophisticated seat belt system.
“That’s where we’re going to put our younger family members, and so we engineered it to be as safe as possible," said Jeff Sitko, safety performance manager for Nissan.
The Murano’s active safety systems include the full suite of Nissan Safety Shield 360 technologies, including automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning, high beam assist, lane departure warning, rear automatic braking, rear cross traffic alert
These ADAS features are increasingly common in vehicles being sold — and more importantly, repaired — in Canada. According to Transport Canada and Canadian Black Book data, nearly eighty percent of new vehicles sold in Ontario in 2024 included at least one form of ADAS, such as forward collision warning or lane keeping assist.
This shift has had a major impact on collision repair professionals, particularly with respect to the recalibration of sensors and cameras following repairs. The Murano, like many modern vehicles, houses its forward collision sensors behind the grille and windshield, meaning even a seemingly minor fender bender or windshield replacement can require precise electronic recalibration to maintain safety function.
Moreover, the Murano’s success in the U.S. government’s oblique pole test — which simulates a vehicle skidding into a fixed pole — earned it a five-star NCAP safety rating. This test demands that the vehicle’s structure absorb impact energy while preventing fuel leaks, maintaining door integrity and deploying airbags within ten milliseconds. These design expectations further complicate post-collision repairs, especially in structural work involving B-pillars and door frames.
In order to earn its IIHS Top Safety Pick+ status, the Murano had to demonstrate strong crash protection in a range of tests — including frontal moderate overlap, side impact, and head restraint effectiveness — while also offering high-performing headlights and ease of use in its child seat anchors.
Nissan reports that the vehicle underwent testing at a US$40 million crash test facility near Detroit, where engineers conduct over 400 crash simulations each year.
