The A3’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Legacy doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the A3 and Legacy have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The A3 has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The Legacy’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The Audi A3 has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags help prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Legacy doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
The A3 has a standard Secondary Collision Brake Assist, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Legacy doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
The A3 Premium Plus has a standard Top View Camera System to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Legacy only offers a rear monitor and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the front or sides.
The A3 has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. A system to reveal vehicles in the Legacy’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the A3 has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Assist and Automatic Brake Activation automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Subaru charges extra for Rear Cross Traffic Alert on the Legacy and its not available on the Base and the Legacy’s Rear Cross Traffic Alert does not include automatic braking.
Both the A3 and the Legacy have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems and rearview cameras.

