Front Airbags - Fiat Idea Owner's Handbook Manual

FRONT AIRBAGS

The car is provided with front airbags for
the driver and passenger and window bags
(head protection system). It may be pro-
vided with optional front side bags.
The front driver / passenger air bags ha-
ve been designed to protect the occupants
in the event of head-on crashes of me-
dium-high severity, by placing the cushion
between the occupant and the steering
wheel or dashboard.
Front air bags are designed to protect
vehicle occupants in head-on crashes and
therefore non-activation in other types of
collisions (side collisions, rear shunts, roll-
overs, etc.) is not a system malfunction.
An electronic control unit causes the bag
to inflate in the event of a head-on crash.
The bag will inflate instantaneously placing
itself between the front occupant's body
and the structures which could cause
injury. It will deflate immediately af-
terwards.
Driver and passenger front airbags are not
a replacement of but complementary to
the belts, which you are recommended to
always wear, as specified by law in Euro-
pe and most non-European countries.
In the event of a collision, a person not
wearing a seat belt may be thrown
forward and con into contact with the bag
before it has fully opened. The protection
106
offered by the cushion is reduced in such
a case.
Front air bag may not be activated in the
following situations:
❒ in collisions against highly deformable
objects not affecting the car front sur-
face (e.g. bumper collision against
guard rail, etc.);
❒ jamming of the car underneath other
vehicles or protective barriers (e.g. un-
derneath a truck or a guard rail); in this
case, the bags would offer no additio-
nal protection with respect to the seat
belt and their deployment is unneces-
sary. In these cases non-deployment
of the airbag does not necessarily in-
dicate a system malfunction.
The front airbags (driver and passenger)
are designed and calibrated to protect
front seat occupants who are wearing seat
belts.
The volume of front air bags at max. in-
flation fills most of the space between the
steering wheel and the driver and between
the dashboard and the passenger.
fig. 17
FRONT AIR BAG ON DRIVER'S
SIDE, Fig. 17
This consists of an instant inflating bag con-
tained in a special recess in the centre of
the steering wheel.
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