Ford Escape: Safety Belt System

WARNING: Always drive and ride with your seatback upright and the lap belt snug and low across the hips.

WARNING: To reduce the risk of injury, make sure children sit where they can be properly restrained.

WARNING: Never let a passenger hold a child on his or her lap while the vehicle is moving. The passenger cannot protect the child from injury in a collision.

WARNING: All occupants of the vehicle, including the driver, should always properly wear their safety belts, even when an air bag supplemental restraint system (SRS) is provided.

WARNING: It is extremely dangerous to ride in a cargo area, inside or outside of a vehicle. In a collision, people riding in these areas are more likely to be seriously injured or killed. Do not allow people to ride in any area of your vehicle that is not equipped with seats and safety belts. Be sure everyone in your vehicle is in a seat and using a safety belt properly.

WARNING: In a rollover crash, an unbelted person is significantly more likely to die than a person wearing a seat belt.

WARNING: Each seating position in your vehicle has a specific safety belt assembly which is made up of one buckle and one tongue that are designed to be used as a pair. 1) Use the shoulder belt on the outside shoulder only. Never wear the shoulder belt under the arm. 2) Never swing the safety belt around your neck over the inside shoulder. 3) Never use a single belt for more than one person.

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

WARNING: Safety belts and seats can become hot in a vehicle that has been closed up in sunny weather; they could burn a small child. Check seat covers and buckles before you place a child anywhere near them.

WARNING: Front and rear seat occupants, including pregnant women, should wear safety belts for optimum protection in an accident.

Combination lap and shoulder belts

1. Insert the belt tongue into the proper buckle (the buckle closest to the direction the tongue is coming from) until you hear a snap and feel it latch. Make sure the tongue is securely fastened in the buckle.

2. To unfasten, press the release button and remove the tongue from the buckle.

Restraint of pregnant women

WARNING: Always ride and drive with your seatback upright and the safety belt properly fastened. The lap portion of the safety belt should fit snug and be positioned low across the hips. The shoulder portion of the safety belt should be positioned across the chest. Pregnant women should also follow this practice. See figure below.

Pregnant women should always wear their safety belt. The lap belt portion of a combination lap and shoulder belt should be positioned low across the hips below the belly and worn as tight as comfort will allow. The shoulder belt should be positioned to cross the middle of the shoulder and the center of the chest.

Energy Management Feature

• This vehicle has a safety belt system with an energy management feature at the front and rear outboard seating positions to help further reduce the risk of injury in the event of a head-on collision.

• The front and rear outboard safety belt system has a retractor assembly that is designed to extend the safety belt webbing in a controlled manner. This helps reduce the belt force acting on the user’s chest.

Safety belt locking modes

All safety restraints in the vehicle are combination lap and shoulder belts. The driver safety belt has the first locking mode and the front outboard passenger and rear seat safety belts have both types of locking modes described as follows:

Vehicle sensitive mode

This is the normal retractor mode, which allows free shoulder belt length adjustment to your movements and locking in response to vehicle movement. For example, if the driver brakes suddenly or turns a corner sharply, or the vehicle receives an impact of approximately 5 mph (8 km/h) or more, the combination safety belts will lock to help reduce forward movement of the driver and passengers.

In addition, the retractor is designed to lock if the webbing is pulled out too quickly. If this occurs, let the belt retract slightly and pull webbing out again in a slow and controlled manner.

Automatic locking mode

In this mode, the shoulder belt is automatically pre-locked. The belt will still retract to remove any slack in the shoulder belt. The automatic locking mode is not available on the driver safety belt.

When to use the automatic locking mode

This mode should be used any time a child safety seat, except a booster, is installed in passenger front or rear seating positions. Children 12 years old and under should be properly restrained in a rear seating position whenever possible. Refer to Safety restraints for children or Safety seats for children later in this chapter.

How to use the automatic locking mode

1. Buckle the combination lap and shoulder belt.
2. Grasp the shoulder portion and pull downward until the entire belt is pulled out.

• Allow the belt to retract. As the belt retracts, you will hear a clicking sound. This indicates the safety belt is now in the automatic locking mode.

How to disengage the automatic locking mode

Disconnect the combination lap/shoulder belt and allow it to retract completely to disengage the automatic locking mode and activate the vehicle sensitive (emergency) locking mode.

WARNING: After any vehicle collision, the safety belt system at all passenger seating positions must be checked by an authorized dealer to verify that the “automatic locking retractor” feature for child seats is still functioning properly. In addition, all safety belts should be checked for proper function.

WARNING: BELT AND RETRACTOR ASSEMBLY MUST BE REPLACED if the safety belt assembly “automatic locking retractor” feature or any other safety belt function is not operating properly when checked by an authorized dealer. Failure to replace the belt and retractor assembly could increase the risk of injury in collisions.

Safety belt height adjustment

Your vehicle has safety belt height adjustments at the front outboard seating positions. Adjust the height of the shoulder belt so the belt rests across the middle of your shoulder.

To adjust the shoulder belt height, squeeze and hold the buttons on the side and slide the height adjuster up or down. Release the buttons and pull down on the height adjuster to make sure it is locked in place.

WARNING: Position the safety belt height adjusters so that the belt rests across the middle of your shoulder. Failure to adjust the safety belt properly could reduce the effectiveness of the safety belt and increase the risk of injury in a collision.

Safety belt pretensioner

Your vehicle is equipped with safety belt pretensioners at the driver and front passenger seating positions.

The safety belt pretensioners activate during frontal collisions, and in side collisions and rollovers. A safety belt pretensioner is a device which tightens the webbing of the lap and shoulder belts in such a way that they fit more snugly against the body.

WARNING: The driver and front passenger safety belt system (including retractors, buckles and height adjusters) must be replaced if the vehicle is involved in a collision that results in deployment of front airbags, seat-mounted side airbags and Safety Canopy System and safety belt pretensioners.

WARNING: Failure to replace the safety belt assembly under the above conditions could result in severe personal injuries in the event of a collision.

Safety belt extension assembly

If the safety belt is too short when fully extended, a safety belt extension assembly can be obtained from an authorized dealer.

Use only extensions manufactured by the same supplier as the safety belt. Manufacturer identification is located at the end of the webbing on the label. Also, use the safety belt extension only if the safety belt is too short for you when fully extended.

WARNING: Do not use extensions to change the fit of the shoulder belt across the torso.

Safety belt warning light and indicator chime

The safety belt warning light illuminates in the instrument cluster and a chime sounds to remind the occupants to fasten their safety belts.

Conditions of operation

Belt-Minder

The Belt-Minder feature is a supplemental warning to the safety belt warning function. This feature provides additional reminders by intermittently sounding a chime and illuminating the safety belt warning lamp in the instrument cluster when the driver’s and front passenger’s safety belt is unbuckled.

The Belt-Minder feature uses information from the front passenger sensing system to determine if a front seat passenger is present and therefore potentially in need of a warning. To avoid activating the Belt-Minder feature for objects placed in the front passenger seat, warnings will only be given to large front seat occupants as determined by the front passenger sensing system.

Both the driver’s and passenger’s safety belt usages are monitored and either may activate the Belt-Minder feature. The warnings are the same for the driver and the front passenger. If the Belt-Minder warnings have expired (warnings for approximately five minutes) for one occupant (driver or front passenger), the other occupant can still activate the Belt-Minder feature.

Note: If you are using MyKey , the Belt-Minder warning will not expire. Refer to MyKey in the Locks and security chapter.

The following are reasons most often given for not wearing safety belts (All statistics based on U.S. data):

WARNING: Do not sit on top of a buckled safety belt or insert a latchplate into the buckle to avoid the Belt-Minder chime. To do so may adversely affect the performance of the vehicle’s air bag system.

Deactivating/activating the Belt-Minder feature

The driver and front passenger Belt-Minder are deactivated/activated independently. When deactivating/activating one seating position, do not buckle the other position as this will terminate the process.

Read Steps 1 - 4 thoroughly before proceeding with the deactivation/activation programming procedure.

Note: If you are using MyKey , the Belt-Minder cannot be disabled.

Also, if the Belt-Minder has been previously disabled, it will be re-enabled after the use of MyKey . Refer to MyKey in the Locks and security chapter.

The driver and front passenger Belt-Minder features can be deactivated/activated by performing the following procedure:

Before following the procedure, make sure that:

• The parking brake is set
• The gearshift is in P (Park) (automatic transmission)
• The gearshift is in N (Neutral) (manual transmission)
• The ignition switch is in the off position
• The driver and front passenger safety belts are unbuckled

WARNING: While the design allows you to deactivate your Belt-Minder , this system is designed to improve your chances of being safely belted and surviving an accident. We recommend you leave the Belt-Minder system activated for yourself and others who may use the vehicle. To reduce the risk of injury, do not deactivate/activate the Belt-Minder feature while driving the vehicle.

1. Turn the ignition switch to the on position. DO NOT START THE ENGINE.
2. Wait until the safety belt warning light turns off (Approximately one minute).

• Step 3 must be completed within 30 seconds after the safety belt warning light turns off.

3. For the seating position being disabled, buckle then unbuckle the safety belt three times, ending in the unbuckled state.

• After Step 3, the safety belt warning light will be turned on for three seconds.

4. Within approximately seven seconds of the light turning off, buckle then unbuckle the safety belt.

• This will disable the Belt-Minder feature for that seating position if it is currently enabled. As confirmation, the safety belt warning light will flash four times per second for three seconds.

• This will enable the Belt-Minder feature for that seating position if it is currently disabled. As confirmation, the safety belt warning light will flash four times per second for three seconds, followed by three seconds with the light off, then followed by the safety belt warning light flashing four times per second for three seconds again.

• After receiving confirmation, the deactivation/activation procedure is complete.