All-New 2022 Honda Civic Gets The Highest Safety Rating Possible From IIHS: Top Safety Pick+

"Safety first," your mother always said.

She was right. Honda agrees, too. That's why the new 11th-generation 2022 Honda Civic has earned the highest safety rating possible from the most challenging safety organization, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. 

The 2022 Honda Civic is officially a Top Safety Pick+. And that plus is a very important addition, as it separates the Civic from competitors such as the Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Corolla, and Subaru Impreza, not to mention rival small cars that didn't even earn Top Safety Pick status. 

Honda's safety priorities can be seen across the entire lineup. And not just the current lineup – Honda's safety focus has been obvious for generations. Honda opened its safe driving school in Suzuka in 1964; brought Japan's first three-point seat belts to market in the S600 sports car, Japan's first anti-lock braking system in 1982, and Japan's first airbag system in 1987; engineered the first motorcycle airbag system in 2005; introduced the first pedestrian dummy for crash tests in 1988; and has been at the forefront of countless other advances. 

Honda's goal is to a future with zero collisions starting with the brand's 2040 vehicles. Getting there obviously requires much more than passive safety features such as the ACE structure and legions of airbags. It's going to be the active safety technology – collision avoidance systems like adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation braking, forward collision warning, lane keeping assist, road departure mitigation – that stops accidents from happening before airbags are even required.

In the meantime, the Civic's status as an IIHS Top Safety Pick+ occurs because the new car earned mandatory ratings in a bevy of IIHS crash tests and includes an array of necessary technology. To become a Top Safety Pick+, a new vehicle requires "good" or "acceptable" headlights in all trim levels and must then earn "good" ratings in six IIHS crash tests evaluations: driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraint. Moreover, a car must also "be available with a front crash prevention system that earns advanced or superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-predestrian evaluations." Thank Honda Sensing for that.

There are high expectations for a car that's been Canada's 23-time best-selling car. The Civic is Canada's car. It's built by Canadians in Canada for Canadians. The Civic hasn't let Canada down in the past, and Honda doesn't intend for this car to be anything less than a class leader in the future.