2005 Mercury Mariner Owner's Manual - Page 99

Seating and Safety Restraints 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, and safety belt usage sensors. • Front passenger sensing system • 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 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. The pretensioners are designed to activate in frontal, and in side collisions and rollovers when the vehicle is equipped with the Safety Canopy system. 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. Front crash severity sensor The front crash severity sensor enhances the ability to detect the severity of an impact. Positioned up front, it provides valuable 99 2005 Mercury Mariner (mrn) Owners Guide (post-2002-fmt) USA_English (fus)