Front Safety Belt Usage Sensors; Front Safety Belt Pretensioners - Ford Escape Hybrid 2006 Owner's Manual

Seating and Safety Restraints
and they move forward during pre-crash braking. The most effective way
to reduce the risk of unnecessary injuries is to make sure all occupants
are properly restrained. Accident statistics suggest that children are
much safer when properly restrained in the rear seating positions than in
the front.
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.
Always transport children 12 years old and under in the back
seat and always properly use appropriate child restraints.
The front passenger sensing system can automatically turn off the
passenger front airbag. The system is designed to help protect small
(child size) occupants from airbag deployments when they are
improperly seated or restrained in the front passenger seat contrary to
proper child-seating or restraint usage recommendations. Even with this
technology, parents are STRONGLY encouraged to always properly
restrain children in the rear seat. The sensor also turns off the passenger
front airbag and seat-mounted side airbag (if equipped) when the
passenger seat is empty to prevent unnecessary replacement of airbag(s)
after a collision.
When the front passenger seat is occupied and the sensing system has
turned off the passenger's frontal airbag, the "pass airbag off" indicator
will light and stay lit to remind you that the front passenger frontal
airbag is off. See Front passenger sensing system in the airbags section
of this chapter.

Front safety belt usage sensors

The front safety belt usage sensors detect whether or not the driver and
front outboard passenger safety belts are fastened. This information
allows your Safety System to tailor the airbag deployment and safety belt
pretensioner activation depending upon safety belt usage. Refer to Safety
belt section in this chapter.

Front safety belt pretensioners

The safety belt pretensioners at the front outboard seating positions are
designed to tighten the safety belts firmly against the occupant's body
during frontal collisions, and in side collisions and rollovers when the
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2006 Escape Hybrid (ehv), Owners Guide (post-2002-fmt) (own2002), Market: USA (fus)