Ford Escape: Personal Safety System™

The Personal Safety System provides an improved overall level of frontal crash protection to front seat occupants and is designed to help further reduce the risk of airbag-related injuries. The system is able to analyze different occupant conditions and crash severity before activating the appropriate safety devices to help better protect a range of occupants in a variety of frontal crash situations.

Your vehicle’s Personal Safety System consists of:

• Driver and passenger dual-stage airbag supplemental restraints.
• Front safety belts with pretensioners, energy management retractors, and safety belt usage sensors.
• Driver’s seat position sensor
• Front passenger sensing system
• “Passenger airbag off” or “pass airbag off” indicator lamp
• 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 airbags, crash sensor(s), safety belt pretensioners, front safety belt usage sensors, driver seat position sensor, front passenger sensing system, 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 may activate the safety belt pretensioners and/or either one or both stages of the dual-stage airbag supplemental restraints based on crash severity and occupant conditions.

The fact that the pretensioners or airbags 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 airbags 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.

Driver and passenger dual-stage airbag supplemental restraints

The dual-stage airbags offer the capability to tailor the level of airbag 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 Airbag 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 information early in the crash event on the severity of the impact. This allows your Personal Safety System to distinguish between different levels of crash severity and modify the deployment strategy of the dual-stage airbags and safety belt pretensioners.

Driver’s seat position sensor

The driver’s seat position sensor allows your Personal Safety System to tailor the deployment level of the driver dual-stage airbag based on seat position. The system is designed to help protect smaller drivers sitting close to the driver airbag by providing a lower airbag output level.

Front passenger sensing system

For airbags to do their job they must inflate with great force, and this force can pose a potentially deadly risk to occupants that are very close to the airbag when it begins to inflate. For some occupants, like infants in rear-facing child seats, this occurs because they are initially sitting very close to the airbag. For other occupants, this occurs when the occupant is not properly restrained by safety belts or child safety seats 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.

WARNING: Air bags can kill or injure a child in a child seat.

NEVER place a rear-facing child seat in front of an active air bag. If you must use a forward-facing child seat in the front seat, move the seat all the way back.

WARNING: When possible, all children 12 years old and under should be properly restrained in a rear seating position.

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 passenger seat-mounted side airbag when the passenger seat is empty.

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 Personal Safety System to tailor the airbag deployment and safety belt pretensioner activation depending upon safety belt usage.

Refer to Safety restraints 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. This helps increase the effectiveness of the safety belts. In frontal collisions, the safety belt pretensioners can be activated alone or, if the collision is of sufficient severity, together with the front airbags.

Safety belt energy management retractors

The front and rear outboard safety belt energy management retractors allow webbing to be pulled out of the retractor in a gradual and controlled manner in response to the occupant’s forward momentum.

This helps reduce the risk of force-related injuries to the occupant’s chest by limiting the load on the occupant. Refer to Energy management feature in this chapter.

Determining if the Personal Safety System is operational

The Personal Safety System uses a warning light in the instrument cluster or a back-up tone to indicate the condition of the system. Refer to the Warning lights and chimes section in the Instrument Cluster chapter. Routine maintenance of the Personal Safety System is not required.

The restraints control module (RCM) monitors its own internal circuits and the circuits for the airbag supplemental restraints, crash sensor(s), safety belt pretensioners, front safety belt buckle sensors, driver seat position sensor, and front passenger sensing system. In addition, the RCM also monitors the restraints warning light in the instrument cluster.

A difficulty with the system is indicated by one or more of the following.

• The warning light will either flash or stay lit.
• The warning light will not illuminate immediately after ignition is turned on.
• A series of five beeps will be heard. The tone pattern will repeat periodically until the problem and warning light are repaired.

If any of these things happen, even intermittently, have the Personal Safety System serviced at an authorized dealer immediately. Unless serviced, the system may not function properly in the event of a collision.

Rear seats

Safety Belt System