2012 Ford Focus Owner Guide 5th Printing - Page 199

Seating and Safety Restraints WARNING: Do not attempt to service, repair, or modify the airbag supplemental restraint systems or its fuses. Contact your authorized dealer as soon as possible. Children and airbags Children must always be properly restrained. Accident statistics suggest that children are safer when properly restrained in the rear seating positions than in the front seating position. Failure to follow these instructions may increase the risk of injury in a collision. WARNING: Airbags can kill or injure a child in a child seat. NEVER place a rear-facing child seat in front of an active airbag. If you must use a forward-facing child seat in the front seat, move the seat all the way back. How does the safety belt pretensioner and airbag supplemental restraint system work? The safety belt pretensioner and airbag SRS are designed to activate when the vehicle sustains longitudinal deceleration sufficient to cause the sensors to close an electrical circuit that initiates pretensioner activation and airbag inflation. The fact that the pretensioners and airbags did not activate in a collision does not mean that something is wrong with the system. Rather, it means the forces were not of the type sufficient to cause activation. Front airbags are designed to activate in frontal and near-frontal collisions, not rollover, side-impact, or rear-impacts unless the collision causes sufficient longitudinal deceleration. 199 2012 Focus (foc) Owners Guide, 5th Printing USA (fus)