Redesigned Toyota Corolla sedan earns safety award

The 2020 Toyota Corolla sedan qualifies for a 2019 Top Safety Pick award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety when equipped with specific headlights.

The Corolla is available as both a sedan and a hatchback. The hatchback, which was new for 2019, was already recognized with a 2019 Top Safety Pick award. The sedan has been redesigned for 2020, using the same platform as the hatchback.

To qualify for a 2019 Top Safety Pick award, a vehicle must earn good ratings in the driver-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests, as well as a good or acceptable rating in the passenger-side small overlap front test. It also needs an advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention and a good or acceptable headlight rating.

The Corolla sedan earns good ratings in all six IIHS crashworthiness evaluations and comes with a standard superior-rated front crash prevention system.

The small car qualifies for a Top Safety Pick award when equipped with optional curve-adaptive headlights, which earn an acceptable rating in IIHS tests. Combined with the Corolla sedan’s good passenger-side small overlap rating, a good headlight rating would have earned the car the higher-tier Top Safety Pick+ award.

The car’s base headlights earn only a marginal rating because they provided inadequate visibility in multiple IIHS test scenarios. High-beam assist, a system that automatically switches between high beams and low beams, depending on the presence of other vehicles, is a standard feature on the Corolla sedan and compensates for some of the limitations of the low beams of both the base headlights and the curve-adaptive ones.