[livingdustmops]

I totally agree with you and am reposting where your little one should travel in the car.

I am posting a couple of PM's I had with another member (with her permission) because I learned something new about the safest place in the car for your fur babies.

(My PM to another member)

Morning

What kind of car are you driving? Does it have side impact bags?

I am very nervous about my guys riding in the front seat even with their harness because of working in the car business. I actually worked for the division at one time that made airbags, scared the hell out of me. A man was killed in one of our plants when it accidentally went off - broke his neck. Of course that was before the passenger sensor so I am going to ask some of the engineers their thoughts on this and also the side impact airbags. I am also going to ask them what % of passenger bags have gone off even with no one sitting in the seat with a high impact crash.
How much lead do you have on your little one from his harness to the seatbelt?
I did finally break down and get the console seat as Bella would be completely out of direct line of any airbag going off. The rest of the gang rides in the back in their lookout seats
Don't mean to scare you and I will let you know what I have found out.
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Her response:
Hmmm... You raise some very valid points about airbags. Yes, my car has side impact bags. It's an Audi A3 - not sure if it's in the States or not. Let me know what you find out, okay?

Joey wears a special harness that attaches one end to him and the other end to the seatbelt. I'd say it's probably just about 6 inches from seatbelt to where it attaches to him. Not much wiggle room. What are thoughts on that?
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My response:

Assumption dog is already in a harness attached to a seatbelt so it is not flying through the air upon impact nor can it get loose after an accident

Okay I talked to an engineer this morning (if you don't think that is difficult, engineers think with their left brains and sales (me) thinks with my right brain, you would die laughing at the conversation. But I am glad I talked to him because he taught me a few things.
1st let me say, the safest spot for your child or your fur baby is in the middle of the back seat (I didn't think about that dah) because any car needs to use the pillars to absorb the energy (cave in) coming into the car. In other words the sides will cave in as they are designed to do and if your dog is on a side it could/will be crushed.

He told me that he has not heard of airbags going off in a crash on the passenger side (with sensors) but also he might not always hear as in the industry there are margins for acceptability (car talk language).
Cars have sensor points at different locations on a car and if these sensors are not triggered in an accident they will not go off. Air bags are not designed to go off in every situation but I am not an expert nor do I want to get into a discussion about them.

He did tell me that many of the side impact curtains are designed to go off with a side impact and protect the drivers head from smashing into the window. Many cover the whole window and down the inside of the door and now they are working to cover both front and rear passengers so all the more reason to move the dog to the middle of the car. He was not sure how far out they expanded (but this is where it gets hard for me to describe but) in an impact and you are hit on the right side first your body will go left and then it will go back to the right with an acceleration and could push the dog into the side curtain at the same time the side curtain expands and break the dogs neck. I did ask him about using the lookout console seat as it is in the middle of the car and not in the area an airbag would go off and he said that was fine. Bottom line: The safest place for your fur baby is harnessed in the middle of the car either front or back

Lookout car seats have a great console model for either cars or trucks