Buick Enclave: How Does an Airbag Restrain?
In moderate to severe frontal or near frontal collisions, even belted occupants can contact the steering wheel or the instrument panel.
In moderate to severe side collisions, even belted occupants can contact the inside of the vehicle.
Airbags supplement the protection provided by safety belts by distributing the force of the impact more evenly over the occupant's body.
Rollover capable roof-rail airbags are designed to help contain the head and chest of occupants in the outboard seating positions in the first, second and third rows.
The rollover capable roof-rail airbags are designed to help reduce the risk of full or partial ejection in rollover events, although no system can prevent all such ejections.
But airbags would not help in many types of collisions, primarily because the occupant's motion is not toward those airbags.
See When Should an Airbag Inflate? for more information.
Airbags should never be regarded as anything more than a supplement to safety belts.
What Makes an Airbag Inflate?
In a deployment event, the sensing system sends an electrical signal triggering
a release of gas from the inflator. Gas from the inflator fills the airbag causing
the bag to break out of the cover ...
What Will You See after an Airbag Inflates?
After the frontal airbags and seat-mounted side impact airbags inflate, they
quickly deflate, so quickly that some people may not even realize an airbag inflated.
Roof-rail airbags may still be at ...
See also:
Warning signals
To help prevent the vehicle from moving
unexpectedly by erroneous operation of
the Intelligent Key listed on the following
chart or to help prevent the vehicle from
being stolen, chime or beep ...
Booster seats
In a situation where a child is too large to fit into a child safety seat but
is still too small to safely use just the three point belt, a booster seat is recommended
for maximum safety. Follow t ...
Engine block heater (if so equipped)
Engine block heaters are used to assist in
cold temperature starting.
The engine block heater should be used
when the outside temperature is 208F
(−78C) or lower.
To use the engine bloc ...