OK I've been wondering how exactly do you know when it is activated, I know that you cant pass 40MPH but how do you know before hand? Yesterday, I was doing some burnouts in the rain, and was like, "oh SIT!!! SAFE MODE MAY GO ON!!" but does that happen from that type of situation?

 

Read the owners manual section under automatic transmission. Details are listed in there.

 

As far as I know, the O/D light flashes for several seconds. Don't know about the 40 MPH thing but after that you're stuck in 3rd gear. You can just shut off the car and start it back up and it should be fine, unless something is really wrong. This is only for automatics (duh). Not sure if there is a fail safe in a manual.

 

fail safe what?

 

In automatics, you have 2 failsafe modes, 1 for the tranny, and one for engine. For the tranny, your OD light flashes, for the engine, your MIL, or check engine light flashes. When the MIL flashes, your car is severely restricted because it found a bad problem, like mis-firing. That's when your car can't go past 40 mph. The MIL flashing applies to manual trannies too.

DW