For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Toyota Crown Signia have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The MINI Countryman doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Toyota Crown Signia are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The MINI Countryman doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Crown Signia are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Countryman doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Crown Signia has standard Whiplash Injury Lessening Seats, which use a specially designed seat to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Whiplash Injury Lessening Seats system allows the backrest to travel backwards to cushion the occupants and the headrests move forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The Countryman doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Crown Signia Limited offers an optional Parking Support Brake that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Countryman doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Crown Signia. But it costs extra on the Countryman.
The Crown Signia Limited offers an optional Bird’s Eye View Camera to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Countryman only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
The Crown Signia’s blind spot warning system uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. The Countryman doesn’t offer a system to reveal objects in the driver’s blind spots.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Crown Signia’s standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert uses sensors in the rear to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side and optional Parking Support Brake on the Limited automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. The Countryman doesn’t offer a rear cross-path warning system.
Both the Crown Signia and the Countryman have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and driver alert monitors.
The Toyota Crown Signia weighs 522 to 797 pounds more than the MINI Countryman. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
The Toyota Crown Signia achieved a “Top Safety Pick” rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for the 2024 model year. This recognition was based on its impressive performance in the small overlap frontal crash test, updated side impact crash test, headlight evaluations, and pedestrian crash prevention testing. The Countryman has not yet been fully evaluated by the IIHS for 2024.