FORD 2002 Focus v.1 - Manual (Page 125)

Seating and Safety Restraints
125
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
dualĆstage 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
nearĆfrontal collisions, not rollovers,
sideĆimpacts, or rearĆimpacts unless
the collision causes sufficient
longitudinal deceleration.