Safety has been always been an important part, irrespective of the field of work that it accounts for. The functional safety standard that is currently being used in the automotive domain is the ISO 26262. This is an adaptation of the IEC 61508 safety standard. It is directed as a basic functional safety standard for a variety of industries. The version of ISO 26262 that is used in this thesis is the final draft released in January, 2011. In this thesis, various parts of the ISO 26262 functional safety standard are considered in order to understand the differences and interdependencies between them. The parts of ISO 26262 that are treated are as follows; Part 1: Vocabulary, Part 3: Concept phase, Part 4: Product development at the system level, Part 6: Product development at the software level and Part 9: Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-oriented and safety-oriented analysis. During the entire course of this thesis the ISO 26262 standard is evaluated and the experience gained from it is jotted down. The understanding gained during this thesis about the ISO 26262 can be applied to ongoing or new development processes. As safety can never be overlooked, the wisdom that belongs to the ISO 26262 can be generously used into embedded systems that demand certain levels of safety.