Importance of wearing safety belts and sitting properly
Airbags are only supplemental restraints. For airbags to do their job, occupants must always properly wear their safety belts and be in a proper seating position.
For your safety and the safety of your passengers, before driving off, always:
In a collision airbags must inflate within the blink of an eye and with considerable force. The supplemental airbags can cause injuries if the driver or the front seat passenger is not seated properly. Therefore in order to help the airbag to do its job, it is important, both as a driver and as a passenger to sit properly at all times.
By keeping room between your body and the steering wheel and the front of the passenger compartment, the airbag can inflate fully and completely and provide supplemental protection in certain frontal collisions. For details on the operation of the seat adjustment controls.
It's especially important that children are properly restrained.
There is a lot that the driver and the passengers can and must do to help the individual safety features installed in your Audi work together as a system.
Proper seating position is important so that the front airbag on the driver side can do its job. If you have a physical impairment or condition that prevents you from sitting properly on the driver seat with the safety belt properly fastened and reaching the pedals, special modifications to your vehicle may be necessary.
Contact your authorized Audi dealer, or call Audi Customer Relations at 1-800-822-2834.
When the airbag system deploys, a gas generator will fill the airbags, break open the padded covers, and inflate between the steering wheel and the driver and between the instrument panel and the front passenger. The airbags will deflate immediately after deployment so that the front occupants can see through the windshield again without interruption.
All of this takes place in the blink of an eye, so fast that many people don't even realize that the airbags have deployed. The airbags also inflate with a great deal of force and nothing should be in their way when they deploy. Front airbags in combination with properly worn safety belts slow down and limit the occupant's forward movement- Together they help to prevent the driver and front seat passenger from hitting parts of the inside the vehicle while reducing the forces acting on the occupant during the crash. In this way they help to reduce the risk of injury to the head and upper body in the crash. Airbags do not protect the arms or the lower parts of the body.
Both front airbags will not inflate in all frontal collisions. The triggering of the airbag system depends on the vehicle deceleration rate caused by the collision and registered by the electronic control unit. If this rate is below the reference value programmed into the control unit, the airbags will not be triggered, even though the car may be badly damaged as a result of the collision. Vehicle damage, repair costs or even the lack of vehicle damage is not necessarily an indication of whether an airbag should inflate or not.
It is not possible to define a range of vehicle speeds that will cover every possible kind and angle of impact that will always trigger the airbags, since the circumstances will vary considerably between one collision and another. Important factors include, for example, the nature (hard or soft) of the object which the car hits, the angle of impact, vehicle speed, etc. The front airbags will also not inflate in side or rear collisions, or in rollovers.
Always remember: Airbags will deploy only once, and only in certain kinds of collisions. Your safety belts are always there to offer protection in those situations in which airbags are not supposed to deploy, or when they have already deployed; for example, when your vehicle strikes or is struck by another after the first collision.
This is just one of the reasons why an airbag is a supplementary restraint and is not a substitute for a safety belt. The airbag system works most effectively when used with the safety belts. Therefore, always properly wear your safety belts.
WARNING
Sitting too close to the steering wheel or instrument panel will decrease the effectiveness of the airbags and will increase the risk of personal injury in a collision.
WARNING