Mercury 1996 Cougar Manual page 22

The location of the air bag and warning labels
If a collision occurs, the sensors sense the
severity of the impact and activates the air bags
if necessary. The air bag system is designed to
deploy in frontal and front-angled collisions
more severe than hitting a parked vehicle (of
similar size and weight) head-on at about
28 mph (45 km/h). Because the system senses
the crash severity rather than vehicle speed,
some frontal collisions at speeds above 28 mph
(45 km/h) will not inflate the air bag.
The whole inflation and deflation process takes
place in a matter of seconds.
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