No dog seatbelt law plans

bluecherry74

carav10 wrote: »

December2011, I skidded on black ice...

Fast forward 12 months, December2012 (yes my unlucky month is December), and some idiot pulls out on me from a side road, hits me side on...

Now, if in either of those two instances, they had been loose in the car, and if, the emergency services were called and I was unable to free myself, those dogs in either event would be a nuisance to the emergency services.

Wow, carav10. Glad you hear you and dogs came through those ordeals ok! TBH, I was always under the impression that crates didn't offer much protection to dogs in the event of a crash. Are they specifically made for use in the car?

Hooked wrote: »

My question... What would I be expected to do if the law is passed? How would I restrain the dog or is my current set up ok?
Curious.

The thing that would worry me is that even though Hugo is in the boot and can't get through to the main part of the car, if you have an accident on a busy road he could easily escape and get into trouble. As TK said, you could clip him to the luggage hooks or if your car doesn't have any you could feed a short lead through to the read seats and secure it to a seatbelt.

tk123 wrote: »

Had a near miss myself 2 weeks ago where I had to slam on the brakes (tool watching his kid walking into the school on his left while pulling out into traffic ie ME on the right :mad:) and was really glad I'd upgraded Bailey's car harness last month! He would have got a knock in the old one - the new one (Bergan) is a much better fit and has less slack so he can't move around as much.

That harness looks really good! Some good information on the page too. To be honest, I'm a tad disappointed with the Ezydog harnesses. The front isn't as padded as it looks in the photos and they're not a great fit when used as a walking harness. Plus while they're sold as being suitable for using as a car harness - they even come with a seatbelt attachment - they're not crash tested. I'll probably end up upgrading to one like yours.

bluecherry74

Question for those of you who own a dog and are against the dog seatbelt law - mostly you've addressed the issue of a loose dog harming passengers, being a loose cannon etc. How would you feel if you were in a serious accident and your dog was badly injured or killed? (Which it very likely would be if it wasn't secured properly.) Do you not think that this alone justified the use of a dog seatbelt or other method of securing your pet?

And if you don't secure your pet in the car, what are your reasons for not doing so? I'm genuinely curious!

seamus

anniehoo wrote: »

Above a certain weight,any loose object albeit (in)animate is a lethal weapon in a crash of significant force. It's "devils advocate" as mentioned above.

This is pretty much it.
Mythbusters did one episode on this because there's an urban myth in the US that a box of tissues on the rear shelf will fly forward and kill you in a crash.

They busted that, obviously, but in Mythbusters style, they then tested a whole pile of other things. One of which was a bowling ball. As I mention above, the heaviest bowling balls are 9kg, but typically more like 4.5kg - about the same weight as your average small family dog. Needless to say, the bowling ball showed that it would make an absolute mess in a crash.

Consistency of an object is important. Obviously bowling balls are solid so your body takes the bulk of the energy. A dog is softer, more like a person, so you and the dog will each probably take half of the energy of the impact. But a half of a lot, is still a lot. If you're not looking at a broken neck, you're looking at severe head injuries and permanent neck damage. The dog will undoubtedly be killed.

mymo

When I was getting a newer car 18months ago I looked into the safety of each car, they were all 5star ncap rated but there was nothing on rear impact, I did find a study that showed this though and it alone ruled out one of the cars I was thinking of, as my dogs travel in the boot(hatchback) with grill behind rear seats. I ended up going for a car 2 years newer than I planned purely on the safety tests.
I do still worry, even though its a small car the boot is big, I have a harness on the small dog, she's very good in the car, the bigger one is excitable and moves around a lot, I am looking for a better harness to train him into sitting still. (Last one he could wriggle out of)
I also have a child, and often more than one in the car so safety is very important.
I wouldn't drive any distance with the dogs loose, although I confess to short trips to the river for walks or the vet without dogs restrained but round here 20mph is most you'd be going. (Narrow streets, steep hills, traffic, loose kids and animals running around streets!)

ManMade

bluecherry74 wrote: »

Question for those of you who own a dog and are against the dog seatbelt law - mostly you've addressed the issue of a loose dog harming passengers, being a loose cannon etc. How would you feel if you were in a serious accident and your dog was badly injured or killed? (Which it very likely would be if it wasn't secured properly.) Do you not think that this alone justified the use of a dog seatbelt or other method of securing your pet?

And if you don't secure your pet in the car, what are your reasons for not doing so? I'm genuinely curious!

I'm against it because it makes a whole chunk of dog owners "law breakers". There is already enough proper animal abuisers in this country as it is and throwing more into it isn't the way to go.

Secondly it won't be implemented. I have a lot of rural links and dogs are treated like royalty because of their work ethic. Restraining a dog would be alien to them. They simple open the boot or door to the back of their jeeps and the dog hoops in. The dog could be in and out 20 times a day. It would be time consuming and in rural eyes a waste of time and farmers don't do that well.

As for your question on crashing. I don't think like that. If it happens it happens. I enjoy seeing my dog happy looking out the window. It's one of the very few things that does nowadays. If you feel happier with him in a seatbelt like my mum does that's fine.

I know most on here will probably be for it. I'm just an ordanary dog owner and from what I've seen most people feel the same way as me. I threat my dog like a king. I don't want to be made a criminal and grouped in with serious animal abuisers.

Maybe a RSA campaign but making it illegal to much, I'd rather phone users were caught. If your dog can't behave in the car don't bring him or else crate or restrain him.

tk123

bluecherry74 wrote: »

That harness looks really good! Some good information on the page too. To be honest, I'm a tad disappointed with the Ezydog harnesses. The front isn't as padded as it looks in the photos and they're not a great fit when used as a walking harness. Plus while they're sold as being suitable for using as a car harness - they even come with a seatbelt attachment - they're not crash tested. I'll probably end up upgrading to one like yours.

I've attached a pic of him wearing it - the triangle at the top where his fur is sticking out is about as much as the Clix covered - this one pretty much covers his whole chest. We used the Clix one for 3 years so got our money's worth! I used to feed the clix thru the split in the back seat but the new one has caribiners so easier to clip to the luggage clips. I know if something happened he'd be afriad of anyone coming near him and would proabably get defensive/be protective of me so while the guard contains him I restrain him as well. Also when we pick up his friend in the pic he gets very excited and would jump out if he wasn't clipped in lol. :P We use a ramp too to save his legs so he doesn't get unclipped until the ramp is in place - yes he stay is very good but it's not worth the risk of him jumping out and landing wrong..

The pic is a bit crap sorry - they're drowned from playing in the floods in the park lol

Magenta

deandean wrote: »

What a complete load of nanny-state over-zealous rubbish! Here we go again, a quango looking for things to keep itself busy. Talking about a 60kg dog.....not exactly your average dog. I trust (not making this a political post of course) the minister will see sense.
Has anyone ever heard of a car occupant getting injured by a flying dog?
The state needs to look at parents who don't restrain their children in cars

Why is an unsecured child any more or less dangerous than a dog of the same weight?

Corkbah wrote: »

.how long before they say smoking in the car is illegal because you might drop the cigarette or the wind might blow it into your face and you'd crash and kill everyone !

or how long before they tell us we cant listen to the radio because the news might surprise you and your attention will be focussed on the radio

any loose pens, coins or boxes of stuff could also be hazardous in the event of a crash !

Corkbah wrote: »

and so is a cup of coffee or a cigarette, or some food with sauce in it.....should they be made illegal too ?

Now you're just being a drama queen. Educate yourself on some physics and figure out how much damage a flying pen could do compared to a 60kg dog.

bluecherry74

ManMade wrote: »

As for your question on crashing. I don't think like that. If it happens it happens. I enjoy seeing my dog happy looking out the window. It's one of the very few things that does nowadays. If you feel happier with him in a seatbelt like my mum does that's fine.

My dogs can still look out the window even though they're restrained. They can stand up, lie down etc. The only thing the seatbelt does is stop them from leaving the back seat.

Maybe I worry too much about things that may or may not happen (I am a worrier by nature ) but as other posters have said on this thread, accidents can and do happen. If something happened to my dogs in an accident and I could have prevented it but didn't, I'd be devastated. I'm sure any "ordinary" dog owner would be too.

ManMade wrote: »

I know most on here will probably be for it. I'm just an ordanary dog owner and from what I've seen most people feel the same way as me. I threat my dog like a king. I don't want to be made a criminal and grouped in with serious animal abuisers.

Maybe a RSA campaign but making it illegal to much, I'd rather phone users were caught. If your dog can't behave in the car don't bring him or else crate or restrain him.

I've no doubt you treat your dog very well and I'm not for a minute putting you in the same class as an animal abuser!! I imagine if any law did come into effect, it would be a small fine or perhaps a penalty point, it certainly would be in the same class as animal abuse.

All I'm suggesting is that people should think about their dog's safety the same way they would think about any other passenger's safety. I'm sure that when seatbelt laws were first introduced for small children there were a lot of people who were against it for the reasons you've outlined.

bluecherry74

tk123 wrote: »

The pic is a bit crap sorry - they're drowned from playing in the floods in the park lol

They look like they had the best day ever. :cool: Love the look of the harness. Can you use it as a walking harness too? I can't imagine trying to change Henry from one harness into another, he gets so excited when we reach the park/woods/wherever.

carav10

bluecherry74 wrote: »

Wow, carav10. Glad you hear you and dogs came through those ordeals ok! TBH, I was always under the impression that crates didn't offer much protection to dogs in the event of a crash. Are they specifically made for use in the car?

The thing that would worry me is that even though Hugo is in the boot and can't get through to the main part of the car, if you have an accident on a busy road he could easily escape and get into trouble. As TK said, you could clip him to the luggage hooks or if your car doesn't have any you could feed a short lead through to the read seats and secure it to a seatbelt.

The crate I used to use was one of the wire collapsibles from jebbstools, just like any normal house crate. But just before I had the most recent accident, I was waiting on delivery of a purpose built, made to measure solid crate that a metalwork teacher friend was doing for me. It's heavy, wouldn't be taking it in and out too often but my crate stays in the car anyway (have an estate). Crates will contain the dogs, it may not stop them from being killed if they hit the sides the wrong way, but it stops anything from hitting them and them hitting anything else. Luckily neither crash made either dog nervous of cars after, but that's down to how you handle the immediate aftermath.

In relation to them escaping, what did happen though was, when I was transferring them to another car at the scene, I put the crate into the other car, and then one of them objected and slipped her collar running off towards the main road. My heart nearly jumped because she is a pure runner. I nearly had a freak attack thinking of the damage she could do if she ran out in front of traffic. Luckily she went into an empty yard and just stood there not knowing where to run. Under those circumstances, 'come' wasn't going to cut it with her and I remembered she does much better with a distant 'down' which she obeyed luckily, poor thing was just frightened and had a little cut on her head from getting a bang. But she gave me and a Garda a big scare of where she might have gone! Also a reason why microchipping is so important! So the moral of that one is, you can do everything right, crate them, protect them & passengers, get them on lead, but remember they can still be frightened and make an escape. Seat harnesses didn't work with mine, one of them spent a whole journey being quiet until I realised she'd been chewing through it happily...

Corkbah

Magenta wrote: »

Why is an unsecured child any more or less dangerous than a dog of the same weight?

And why is a dog any less dangerous than an inanimate object of a similar weight ? or in some cases of less weight (pair of running spikes, football boots etc)

Magenta wrote: »

Now you're just being a drama queen. Educate yourself on some physics and figure out how much damage a flying pen could do compared to a 60kg dog.

please take the time to read what I said

on the subject of dogs in cars - it has as much potential to be a hazard as anything else that isn't tied down in the car ...so any loose pens, coins or boxes of stuff could also be hazardous in the event of a crash !

its not comparing a pen to a 60kg dog which is what you are implying - I'm saying any loose object could potentially be a hazard and could cause injury/paralysis or even death.

Simple physics would tell you that ANY moving object can cause an injury, given the correct velocity at time of impact.

Hellrazer

Magenta wrote: »

Now you're just being a drama queen. Educate yourself on some physics and figure out how much damage a flying pen could do compared to a 60kg dog.

Magenta calm down.Attack the post not the poster are the rules of boards and not just this forum.So far Ive had two reported posts from this thread..I will lock it if users dont calm down a bit.

The Sweeper

My dog goes into the boot (softroader). I wouldn't allow him unrestrained in the back seats or the passenger seat. He's 30kgs. If he were to sit in the passenger seat up front, his weight would be sufficient to set off the seatbelt alarm - the one that beeps if your seatbelt isn't plugged in. That's enough of a hint for me.

LucyBliss

As far as I'm concerned, if you're a living breathing creature and if the car stopping suddenly or us getting in an accident means that you can be hurt or you can hurt me, the car doesn't move until you have your seat belt on, regardless of how many legs you have.

I'm lucky that my dogs are small enough to be seat belted comfortably on the back seat and that they usually curl up and snooze. If they were in any way restless or trying to hop over onto the passenger seat, I'd have no choice but to crate them then.