2004 Mercury Monterey Owner's Manual - Page 120

Seating and Safety Restraints 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. • Front safety belts with pretensioners, energy management retractors (first row only), and safety belt usage sensors. • Driver's seat position sensor. • Passenger occupant classification sensor • Front crash severity sensor. • Restraints Control Module (RCM) with impact and safing sensors. • Restraint system warning light and back-up tone. • The electrical wiring for the air bags, crash sensor(s), safety belt pretensioners, front safety belt usage sensors, driver seat position sensor, passenger occupant classification sensor, and indicator lights. How does the Personal Safety System work? The Personal Safety System can adapt the deployment strategy of your vehicle's safety devices according to crash severity and occupant conditions. A collection of crash and occupant sensors provides information to the Restraints control module (RCM). During a crash, the RCM activates the safety belt pretensioners and/or either one or both stages of the dual-stage air bag supplemental restraints based on crash severity and occupant conditions. The fact that the pretensioners or air bags did not activate for both front seat occupants in a collision does not mean that something is wrong with the system. Rather, it means the Personal Safety System determined the accident conditions (crash severity, belt usage, etc.) were not appropriate to activate these safety devices. Front air bags and pretensioners are designed to activate only in frontal and near-frontal collisions, not rollovers, side-impacts, or rear-impacts unless the collision causes sufficient longitudinal deceleration. Driver and passenger dual-stage air bag supplemental restraints The dual-stage air bags offer the capability to tailor the level of air bag inflation energy. A lower, less forceful energy level is provided for more common, moderate-severity impacts. A higher energy level is used for the most severe impacts. Refer to Air bag supplemental restraints section in this chapter. 120 2004 Monterey (mty) Owners Guide (post-2002-fmt) USA English (fus)