How to travel safely in your car with your pet

Every time there are more people who have some animal in their family. If you have a dog, a cat or another animal, we must follow all the guidelines to be able to depart on your car trips in complete safety.

Possíveis riscos

As occupants of the vehicle, you must be imprisoned and protected. If this is not the case, the driver will be exposed to a fine of 100 euros. However, this should not be the most worrying, but rather the security of your animal's respect and two other passages. We must not lift our estimated animal correctly/imprisoned in the vehicle above a series of risks that we must face :

• If the driver's distraction increases, if the animal becomes nervous, he or she may try to escape.
• It may interfere with driving by climbing on top of the driver or activating the vehicle's mechanical systems (gearboxes, pedals...).
• There is a risk that stopping the vehicle and opening the door of an animal escapes, potentially interfering with circulation and causing an accident that puts the lives of other road users at risk. Something similar could happen ao debruçar-se da janela e cair.
• No accident or impact by an unintentionally captured animal can cause very serious damage or even death to the remaining occupants. To give you an idea, a frontal collision when driving at 50 km/h is a medium-sized vehicle (20 kg in weight) multiplied by 35 or its weight, due to the elephant effect, and the collision with the occupants of the vehicle with a force corresponding to a weight of 700 kg.

Retention systems

We must select the restraint system in function of the size or weight of our dog, cat or other estimated animal, but it is also imperative that it is duly approved, or that it will give us the assurance that it has passed various tests that guarantee its effectiveness in the event of a crash. Harness Especially recommended for caes. We turn on the safety devices by means of the safety belt or the Isofix devices. If there are only one harness, it is most recommended that you use two-strap harnesses, so that in the event of an accident they will retain the best weight of the animal. In this case, it is necessary to catch the animal just by grabbing it, since it is not effective as an element to catch and it can also seriously injure the unfished animal. Transport box There are two safer methods. For large bags weighing more than 20 kg , it is recommended that you travel in a transport box placed on the baggage holder, in which it will be placed as possible as possible in terms of cost and in a transversal position in relation to the direction of travel. If you do not estimate small volume and weight , these should be placed in a transport box fitted between the front and rear seats. In this way, it is prevented from moving uncontrolled inside the passenger compartment, potentially distracting the driver. They should never be placed on the prisoner's seat by a safety belt, since tests carried out show that the box is broken by the estimated animal that was shot through the box. Grelha divisória It allows you to enable the baggage holder for the transport of large animals in vehicles with rear or family doors, dividing the load into two occupants. The safest and most recommended are only when they are mounted from the top of the vehicle attached to the baggage holder compartment. Again, it is not recommended that you decide to leave your baggage holders alone. The best thing is that they are also installed in their corresponding transport box.