Volkswagen Tiguan Owners Manual: Safety belts protect

Fig. 60 Belted driver secured by the correctly worn safety belt in the event of a sudden braking maneuver.

Used properly, safety belts can make a big difference. Safety belts help to keep passengers in their seats, gradually reduce energy levels applied to the body in a collision, and help prevent the uncontrolled movement that can cause serious injuries. In addition, safety belts reduce the danger of being thrown out of the vehicle ⇒ Fig. 60 .

Safety belts attach passengers to the car and give them the benefit of being slowed down more gently or softly through the give in the safety belts, crumple zones, and other safety features (such as airbags) engineered into today's vehicles. The front crumple zones and other passive safety features (such as the airbag system) are also designed to absorb kinetic energy. By absorbing the kinetic energy over a longer period of time, the forces on the body become more tolerable and less likely to cause injury.

Although these examples are based on a frontal collision, safety belts can also substantially reduce the risk of injury in other kinds of crashes. So, whether you're on a long trip or just going to the corner store, always buckle up and make sure that others do, too.

Accident statistics show that vehicle occupants properly wearing safety belts have a lower risk of being injured and a much better chance of surviving a collision. Properly using safety belts also greatly increases the ability of the supplemental airbags to do their job in a collision. For this reason, wearing a safety belt is required by law in most countries including the United States and Canada.

Although your Volkswagen is equipped with airbags, you still have to wear the safety belts provided. Front airbags, for example, are activated only in some frontal collisions. The front airbags are not activated in all frontal collisions, in side and rear collisions, in rollovers, or in cases when the conditions for deployment stored in the electronic control unit are not met. The same goes for the other airbag systems on your Volkswagen.

So always wear your safety belt and make sure that everybody in your vehicle is properly restrained!