The 2012 ZDX continues Acura’s tradition of advancing passive safety feature content to achieve a high level of crash worthiness as well as is targeted to receive top safety ratings in its class. The story begins with the Advanced Compatibility Engineering™ (ACE™) body structure, a technology designed to manage and disperse frontal collision forces to better protect the passenger cabin and improve car-to-car collision safety. Inside, standard passive-safety features include front seat belts with automatic tensioning system with load limiters, dual-stage, multiple-threshold airbags, front-seat side airbags, active front head restraints, knee bolsters for the driver and front passenger, and side curtain airbags for front and outboard rear passengers. The Acura ZDX with Advance Package also gets Acura’s innovative Collision.

As the popularity soared for light trucks (including pickups, crossover vehicles and SUVs) in the last decade, so did the risk of such large vehicles colliding head-on with smaller ones. In light of this risk, engineers of the Acura ZDX designed a front structure that helps minimize the likelihood of over-ride or submarining in frontal collisions between vehicles of disparate size.

The Acura ZDX makes pedestrian safety a high priority, and adopts several pedestrian-safety measures that U.S. law does not require. For example, the ZDX hood frame and aluminum hood panel are designed to help protect pedestrians by deforming over a broad area to absorb collision energy. In addition, the hood hinges are designed to bend and the windshield wiper pivots also feature a breakaway design to help reduce injury in the event that a collision with a pedestrian should occur.

Source: http://www.honda.com/newsandviews/article.aspx?id=6159-en