{CAUTION:
If something is between an occupant and an
airbag, the airbag might not inflate properly or
it might force the object into that person
causing severe injury or even death. The path
of an inflating airbag must be kept clear. Do
not put anything between an occupant and an
airbag, and do not attach or put anything on
the steering wheel hub or on or near any other
airbag covering. If your vehicle has
roof-mounted side impact airbags, never
secure anything to the roof of your vehicle by
routing the rope or tie-down through any door
or window opening. If you do, the path of an
inflating airbag will be blocked. Do not let seat
covers block the inflation path of a side impact
airbag. The path of an inflating airbag must be
kept clear.
When Should an Airbag Inflate?
The driver’s and right front passenger’s frontal airbags
are designed to inflate in moderate to severe frontal
or near-frontal crashes. But they are designed to inflate
only if the impact exceeds a predetermined deployment
threshold. Deployment thresholds take into account
a variety of desired deployment and non-deployment
events and are used to predict how severe a crash
is likely to be in time for the airbags to inflate and help
restrain the occupants. Whether your frontal airbags
will or should deploy is not based on how fast your
vehicle is traveling. It depends largely on what you hit,
the direction of the impact and how quickly your
vehicle slows down.
Your vehicle has a “dual stage” driver airbag, which
adjusts the restraint according to crash severity using
electronic frontal sensor(s) which help the sensing
system distinguish between a moderate frontal impact
and a more severe frontal impact. The “dual stage”
driver airbag inflates to a level less than full deployment
for moderate frontal impacts and to a full deployment
for more severe frontal impacts.
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