2022 Toyota Corolla cross earns IIHS Top Safety Pick+ nod

While the 2022 Toyota Corolla Cross is somewhat ho-hum compared to its peers when it comes to day-to-day driving, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has identified its redeeming virtue: it's fantastically safe. The org announced Tuesday that Toyota's new baby CUV earned its coveted Top Safety Pick+ rating.

This rating means the Corolla Cross aced all of the safety group's primary collision prevention and mitigation tests and offers no trim with standard headlights rated lower than "Acceptable." The Corolla Cross was dinged only for its performance in subcategories that didn't impact overall test outcomes. For example, it earned an "Acceptable" for the strength of its structure/safety cage in the passenger-side small overlap test; it still earned a "Good" rating overall in the test thanks to the performance of other safety components.

Also earning the top nod for 2022 was Toyota's RAV4 Prime. The standard RAV4 model earned the generic Top Safety Pick (no +) when equipped with the LED projector headlights offered on every trim but the barebones LE. The standard reflectors offered inadequate illumination in IIHS' curve visibility testing and were rated only "Marginal."