The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has recognized the 2020 Ford Escape with its Top Safety Pick Award when the small SUV is outfitted with specific headlights.

The Escape underwent a series of six challenging crashworthiness test and garnered good ratings across the board. These evaluations included the driver-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, head restraint tests, and finally, the passenger-side small overlap front test. 

Recently redesigned, the 2020 Escape showed particularly impressive improvement in the passenger-side small overlap test, pushing well beyond its 2013 to 2019 models which all previously scored a poor rating. 

To capture Top Safety status, vehicles also need an advanced or superior rating for vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention and a good or acceptable headlight rating.

The Escape measured up on both counts.

The vehicle's standard front crash prevention system as well as its optional system both scored a superior rating from IIHS engineers. Both systems avoided collisions with a fixed object representing the rear of another vehicle in 12 and 25 mph track tests.

Finally, the Escape earned an acceptable rating for its available LED headlights, but its base halogen headlights got only a marginal rating.

Another small SUV — the 2020 Lincoln Corsair — was also recently recognized with a Top Safety Pick Award from IIHS.