Occupant safety protection system

1 . An occupant safety restraint system comprising:

a first occupant protection system having at least one seat belt movable about the occupant:

a second occupant protection system comprising a lower leg protection system including a deployable knee bolster to protect at least a portion of the lower extremities of the occupant and

first means for deactivating the second occupant protection system based upon the operational state of the first occupant protection system.

2 . The system as defined in claim 3 further including sensor means for generating a deactivation signal upon the occurrence of certain conditions.

3 . The system as defined in claim 2 wherein the sensor means includes at least one of a first sensor configured to generate the deactivation signal on the latching of a seat belt tongue within a corresponding buckle and a proximity sensor configured to generate the deactivation signal when a portion of a lower leg of the occupant is sufficiently close to the knee bolster.

4 . The system as defined in claim 1 wherein the first occupant protection system comprises a multi-point seat belt system.

5 . The system as defined in claim 4 wherein the multi-seat belt system comprises a tongue latchable within a buckle.

6 . The system as defined in claim 5 further including sensor means for generating a deactivation signal indicating one of a) the tongue is latched in the buckle and b) the tongue is not latched within the buckle.

7 . The system as defined in claim 6 further including deactivation signal means responsive to the deactivation signal for deactivating the knee bolster.

8 . The system as defined in claim 4 wherein the first means includes a lower leg proximity sensor for generating the deactivation signal.

9 . The system as defined in claim 1 including a weight sensor for determining the presence of a seated occupant.