The 2000 Mercury Sable takes safety in a family sedan to a new level

"We wanted to enhance the safety reputation Sable has built over the years to give Mercury customers even more peace of mind about their purchase." -- Helen Petrauskas, Vice President - Environmental and Safety Engineering

• Builds on the success of the 1999 Sable, which the government has awarded its highest ranking - five stars - for both the driver and passenger during frontal crash tests
  
• First vehicle on the market, along with Ford Taurus, with Ford Motor Company's Advanced Restraints System, featuring integrated front seat safety belt pretensioners, energy management retractors, safety belt usage sensors, driver's seat position sensor, dual-stage inflating air bags and a dedicated crash severity sensor
  
• First mid-size upscale car with Ford Motor Company's child-friendly trunk release system, which will be a standard feature on all Mercury, Lincoln and Ford cars sold in the United States and Canada beginning this year
  
• Head-and-chest side air bags are available, helping protect drivers and front-seat passengers during side impacts
  
• Energy-absorbing trim panels help absorb impact during accidents, reducing occupants' risk of injury
  
• Redesigned armrests better collapse during collisions, helping further reduce the risk of spleen and liver injuries for occupants involved in side-impact crashes
  
• Child-seat tethers anchored in the back seat further improve the ability to securely anchor child safety seats
  
• New Belt-Minder system helps remind Sable drivers to buckle up

Engineered to achieve enhanced performance in crash tests and real-world accidents, the new Sable features the most advanced package of safety technology available in any Ford Motor Company product on the market.

Some call it the safety cage, others refer to it as the car's skeleton. Whatever it is called, the passenger compartment of the 2000 Sable provided engineers with a solid foundation for creating one of the safest mid-size sedans on the road today.

Government scientists will crash the new Sable into a fixed concrete barrier at 35 mph, creating essentially the same conditions as two identical vehicles colliding head-on while each is traveling 35 mph. Then, scientists will examine impact data provided by instrumented dummies inside the vehicle during the crash test.

Paying special attention to head and chest injury data, government researchers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration assign a "star" ranking that corresponds to the level of risk the dummies had in this test of experiencing a serious head or chest injury.

NHTSA has said that a five-star rating indicates that in its 35 mph frontal crash test, the belted dummy measurements correlate to a 10 percent or less chance of serious head or chest injury.