"The performance of the Santa Fe demonstrates Hyundai’s commitment to providing the highest level of safety to its customers," says Institute president Adrian Lund. The Hyundai Entourage and its twin, the Kia Sedona, also earned the TOP SAFETY PICK designation for minivans.

"Criteria to win the award are tough because they're intended to drive continued safety improvements such as high crash test ratings and rapid addition of ESC," says Lund.

The Santa Fe is equipped with standard side airbags designed to protect the heads of people in all three rows of seats and standard ESC. The Institute is recognizing vehicles with this award to help consumers distinguish the best overall choices without having to sort through multiple crash test results.

Redesign improves rear impact performance: Hyundai engineers redesigned the seat/head restraints in the Santa Fe to improve rear impact performance. The seats/head restraints in its predecessor model were rated poor overall. The new seats include "active" head restraints designed to move the restraints up and toward front seat occupants’ heads in a rear impact. Seats/head restraints in the new Santa Fe improve to good overall.

How vehicles are evaluated: The Institute's frontal crashworthiness evaluations are based on results of 40 mph frontal offset crash tests. Each vehicle's overall evaluation is based on measurements of intrusion into the occupant compartment, injury measures recorded on a Hybrid III dummy in the driver seat, and analysis of slow-motion film to assess how well the restraint system controlled dummy movement during the test.

Side evaluations are based on performance in a crash test in which the side of a vehicle is struck by a barrier moving at 31 mph. The barrier represents the front end of a pickup or SUV. Ratings reflect injury measures recorded on two instrumented SID-IIs dummies, assessment of head protection countermeasures, and the vehicle's structural performance during the impact. Injury measures obtained from the two dummies, one in the driver seat and the other in the back seat behind the driver, are used to determine the likelihood that a driver and/or passenger in a similar real-world crash would sustain serious injury to various parts of the body. The movements and contacts of the dummies' heads during the test also are evaluated. Structural performance is based on measurements indicating the amount of B-pillar intrusion into the occupant compartment.

Rear crash protection is rated according to a two-step procedure. Starting points for the ratings are measurements of head restraint geometry — the height of a restraint and its horizontal distance behind the back of the head of an average-size man. Seat/head restraints with good or acceptable geometry are tested dynamically using a dummy that measures forces on the neck.