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Safety Belt Use During Pregnancy
Safety belts work for everyone, including pregnant
women. Like all occupants, they are more likely to be
seriously injured if they do not wear safety belts.
A pregnant woman should wear a lap-shoulder belt, and
the lap portion should be worn as low as possible,
below the rounding, throughout the pregnancy.
The best way to protect the fetus is to protect the
mother. When a safety belt is worn properly, it is more
likely that the fetus will not be hurt in a crash. For
pregnant women, as for anyone, the key to making
safety belts effective is wearing them properly.
Right Front Passenger Position
To learn how to wear the right front passenger’s safety
belt properly, seeDriver Position on page 1-16.
The right front passenger’s safety belt works the same
way as the driver’s safety belt — except for one
thing. If you ever pull the shoulder portion of the belt out
all the way, you will engage the child restraint locking
feature which may turn off the passenger’s frontal
airbag. If this happens unintentionally, just let the belt
go back all the way and start again.
Center Passenger Position
If your vehicle has front and rear bench seats, someone
can sit in the center positions.
When you sit in the center rear seat position of a crew
cab, you have a lap-shoulder belt which is similar to
the rear outside seat positions. To learn how to wear this
belt see “Lap-Shoulder Belt” underRear Seat
Passengers on page 1-27.
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Where to Put the Restraint
Accident statistics show that children are safer if they
are restrained in the rear rather than the front seat.
General Motors recommends that child restraints
be secured in a rear seat including an infant riding in a
rear-facing infant seat, a child riding in a forward-facing
child seat and an older child riding in a booster seat.
Never put a child in a rear-facing child restraint in
the right front passenger seat unless your vehicle has
the passenger sensing system or an airbag off
switch and the passenger airbag status indicator or the
airbag off light shows off. Never put a rear facing
child restraint in the right front passenger seat unless
the airbag is off. Here is why:
{CAUTION:
A child in a rear-facing child restraint can be
seriously injured or killed if the right front
passenger’s airbag in ates. This is because
the back of the rear-facing child restraint
CAUTION: (Continued)
CAUTION: (Continued)
would be very close to the in ating airbag. Be
sure the airbag is off before using a rear-facing
child restraint in the right front seat position.
Even though the passenger sensing system or
airbag off switch are designed to turn off the
passenger’s frontal airbag under certain
conditions, no system is fail-safe, and no one
can guarantee that an airbag will not deploy
under some unusual circumstance, even
though it is turned off. General Motors
recommends that rear-facing child restraints
be transported in vehicles with a rear seat that
will accommodate a rear-facing child restraint,
whenever possible.
If you need to secure a forward-facing child
restraint in the right front seat, always move
the front passenger seat as far back as it will
go. It is better to secure the child restraint in a
rear seat.
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6. To tighten the belt, push down on the child restraint,
pull the shoulder portion of the belt to tighten the lap
portion of the belt and feed the shoulder belt back
into the retractor. If you are using a forward-facing
child restraint, you may nd it helpful to use your
knee to push down on the child restraint as you
tighten the belt. You should not be able to pull more
of the belt out of the retractor once the lock has
been set.
7. Push and pull the child restraint in different directions
to be sure it is secure.To remove the child restraint, just unbuckle the vehicle’s
safety belt and let it go back all the way. The safety
belt will move freely again and be ready to work for an
adult or larger child passenger.
Securing a Child Restraint in the
Right Front Seat Position (Regular
and Extended Cab) (With Airbag
Off Switch)
Your vehicle has a right front passenger airbag. There
is a switch on the instrument panel that you can
use to turn off the right front passenger’s frontal airbag.
See the following illustration. Your switch may vary
slightly. SeeAirbag Off Switch on page 1-73for more
on this, including important safety information and
illustrations of alternate switch designs.
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