SAFETY RESTRAINTS
Personal Safety System
The Personal Safety System provides an improved overall level of frontal
crash protection to front seat occupants and is designed to help further
reduce the risk of air bag-related injuries. The system is able to analyze
different occupant conditions and crash severity before activating the
appropriate safety devices to help better protect a range of occupants in
a variety of frontal crash situations.
Your vehicle’s Personal Safety System consists of:
• Driver and passenger dual-stage air bag supplemental restraints. Refer
to the Air bag supplemental restraints section in this chapter.
• Front safety belts with pretensioners, energy management retractors,
and safety belt usage sensors. Refer to the Safety belts section in this
chapter.
• Driver’s seat position sensor.
• Front crash severity sensor.
• Restraints Control Module (RCM) with impact and safing sensors.
• An indicator light and back-up tone.
• The electrical wiring for the air bags, crash sensor(s), safety belt
pretensioners, front safety belt usage sensors and driver’s seat position
sensor.
How does the personal safety system work?
The Personal Safety System uses a collection of sensors to gather
information about the driver’s seat position, driver and front outboard
passenger’s safety belt usage and accident severity. Then, dual-stage
inflating air bags are combined with safety belt pretensioners and energy
management retractors to help provide enhanced occupant protection in
frontal crashes.
The driver’s seat position sensor determines if the seat is fore or aft of a
reference position. Similarly, the safety belt usage sensors determine if
the driver and front outboard passenger safety belts are fastened. These
sensors provide the ability to tailor the air bag deployment based upon
how close the driver’s seat is to the steering wheel and whether or not
the safety belts are fastened.
The dual-stage air bags offer the ability to tailor the air bag inflation with
two energy levels. A lower, less forceful energy level is provided for more
Seating and safety restraints
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