A lot of attention has been placed lately on how important it is to restrain an animal while driving in a vehicle. But a new report demonstrates that these types of restraints might not be as safe as many people believe.
A study designed to look into the safety of pet restraints and harness systems was conducted last year by the Center for Pet Safety. They have released their results, and their findings paint a disturbing picture. By testing the systems according to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213, which mandates requirements for child safety seats, researchers discovered that four of the leading pet harnesses demonstrated a 100% failure rate when crash tested.
The Center for Pet Safety takes issue with companies’ unverifiable claims that various restraints can protect both animals and humans in the event of a crash. They say that there aren’t any governmental standards in place to ensure that products are safe, so a company’s claim are impossible to verify. In addition, they say that the companies behind the restraint systems are not required to test the items in order to make sure they would be safe when an accident occurs. As such, there still may exist the potential for a pet to become a projectile in the event of a collision.
They conducted the study by creating a crash test dog that was tested during crashes using the aforementioned safety harnesses.