Between the driver distraction, and the fact that they become a deadly projectile in a crash (and of course the fact that even a fairly minor crash could kill the dog), It’s a really good idea to have some kind of car restraint for pets in the car. Buckle him in for real!
I'm sympathetic to wanting to protect pups, but to take something commonplace and label it "pretty reckless" is not the right way to convince people. I suspect a lot of ills in society can probably be traced to people filtering out the chorus of well-meaning "here's yet another thing you're doing wrong" they get every day, and thereby missing the important stuff.
An example that has stuck with me, from 2019, about the environmental unsoundness of gardening: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20838072
I'm sympathetic to the distaste for scolds robotic and otherwise, but on the other hand, sometimes the scolds are right.
I'm reminded of a prior employer who didn't want us doing nontrivial networking at our desks, so they used STP traffic as a sort of canary. If you plugged in a switch that was smart enough to be running STP, your port would be disabled for 30 minutes.
So of course, we puzzled it out with wireshark, disabled STP, and created a monster by running network cables over the cube partitions. Sometime later we accidentally brought the network to its knees with the fallout of a switching loop (which is what STP prevents).
As a policy, it was like if you needed to pass a breathalyzer in order to put on your seatbelt.
A better approach is friendliness, and gently pointing out how dangerous it is. "Hey man - careful with those kids. My neighbor died that way growing up - might be worth pulling them into the cab" is more likely to get a "Really? Dang, yea, you're right"
On the other, I think at this point both sides of the specific "should dogs be restrained in cars" wars are pretty sizeable.
Some people feel like it's the nanny state encroaching on their rights, others understand how a 20 mph crash could grievously injure our dogs, and that taking 30 seconds* to secure them can be a huge difference.
* some people paint it as a huge hassle, but my 75 lb Greyhound is as nervous and training-resistant as dogs get and had no problem learning being still enough to slip into his harness before we get moving
That’s the point.
Some people will browbeat you over topics that they personally don't care that much about, just so they can feel good about themselves: I agree with that. But I think people tend to really do feel pretty strongly about the unrestrained dog thing.
At the end of the day it's your life, your dog, we all take risks, etc. etc. but it's still an uneasy thing to think about how it can go wrong
I have heard maybe some modern cars have better occupancy sensors based on something better than weight but I'd expect a dog to set of most sensors designed to detect a human :)
I also wonder if the radio is disabled primarily because a lot of modern cars seem to use the radio speakers as the chime - not sure if the F150 does this - but also even if the chime was separate I guess if the radio was too loud you wouldn't be able to hear it.
In the United States it's the opposite: totally legal to throw fido in the car and let them roam free. Except in New Jersey. Go figure.
I totaled two cars that way one wet night - mine, and that of the idiot college-freshman-to-be who made an illegal left into the intersection a couple hundred feet in front of me, because of the kitten wandering around the cabin. (The kitten came through just fine.)
Its the same thing with gun laws. Stupid people kill people. Not the guns. You are taking away "guns" and emboldening people who already don't follow the law. Your idea to make a LAW to make it illegal to have an unrestrained dog in the vehicle is ineffective and naive. It doesn't do a thing and only adds to a growing chaotic twisted system of laws that are growing top-heavily. I think its disgusting that people have opinions that subtly destroy our country. Keep your opinion to yourself. Stop trying to hurt others freedoms because you had someone do something stupid and you want to blame it on an external factor that was irrelevent. People can have innumerable distractions besides a phone or a pet... and you're going to blame that when it pops up and call for it to be illegal next.
Disgusting behavior and pattern of thought.
- A single pet unrestrained in the back seat, or in a harness in the passenger seat.
- Two or more pets: in individual cages, physically separated from the driver.
Make sure you take all cell phones from anyone entering a vehicle. Wouldn't want the phone to start ringing unexepectantly and cause a car crash!!! Don't forget to follow all laws. Wouldn't want to be illegal. In Tennessee, it is illegal to share your Netflix password with others. Better report yourself to the authorities. How reckless!
I'm not sure why anyone would be against protecting their pet like some of the other comments here though. Can't work out if its stupidity or ignorance.
We can't make everything perfectly safe.
https://gunner.com/blogs/pack/why-should-i-tie-down-my-dog-c...
There are also various harnesses that attach to seatbelts for non-kennel transportation.
There's pro's and con's for this.
Firstly the dog could be in the front passenger seat in a harness and restrained which doesnt use the seatbelts, so the pressure sensor in the seat/base of the chair that detects weight, and a seat belt clip not inserted into the seat belt harness could trigger these cars's safety systems.
Considering some cars can also let you switch off the passenger airbag and these are generally on by default with the manual override switch located in a variety of places, it might be simpler to have these options and questions built into these OLED displays which the driver has to run through, much like a pilot running through a series of checks before take off.
> Travelling with an unrestrained dog in a car is pretty reckless (and maybe illegal). When dogs (and cats) are unrestrained, whilst illegal in many countries, in vehicle crashes, their faster reaction times which is faster than snakes hence why they were domesticated, mean they more often than not escape unharmed.
As to being a projectile, again generally not if they are laying down inside the vehicle, but when they have their heads out of windows for Youtube views, the risk is increased.
However if projectile risk is an issue, why dont people use cargo netting to strap down their mobile phones, laptops, briefcases, handbags inside a vehicle when on the daily commute?
Yout cant film inside a car using Go Pro's on a race track unless the camera is attached to a surface like the inside of the windscreen with two suction pads.
Yet ironically, if you are a proper VIP being chauffeured around, you'll often get told not to wear your seatbelt as these can restrain you in place in the event of an attack and the bodyguards like to get you out of the vehicle quickly... Although I see that as a mixed message considering only the bodyguard was wearing a seatbelt when Princess Diana and Dodi died in their car crash and according to someone friends with the bodyguard, MI6 told him to get them to take the route that night which was different to their normal route. Stranger Things!