Anyone else hear this on the news?????
 When the story came on it didn't sound as imminent as it did at first...but they did say that Oregon was already issuing tickets for pets in cars--even if they were harnessed.  When it starts in one place...all the 'sheep' lawmakers have to follow! I think it was on the news because last week there was a fatal accident and it was reported that cats in the car were to blame! Who in their right mind would transport cats without a 'kitty-carrier'??  Just wondered if anyone else had heard this? |
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| I haven't heard that particular story, but "pets in the car" was listed as a possible hazard in a recent newspaper article here. I googled it and here's an article pertaining to it. The focus seems to pertain to "pets behind the wheel" http://www.kansas.com/2011/01/22/168556 ... ained.html |
| How the heck would you transport an animal to the vet or emergency clinic? Or to participate in a dog show? Or even to get it home from the breeder or shelter? There seems to be a lot to work through on this concept.  |
| I wonder how people are supposed to obtain veterinary care or get to the groomer or the training or boarding facility if dogs are banned from vehicles. It'd be interesting to see who's pushing for that law That's a nice article you shared, Brenda.  I can understand the danger of a loose dog in the car... both the distraction and a physical block of the driver's view or movement. I've seen people driving down the road with a dog sitting on their lap with it's head out the driver side window. I sometimes wonder if they ever give a thought to the force with which an airbag is deployed and their own weight being thrown forward in an accident. Then someone opens the car door and, if the dog is somehow still alive, the dog runs into traffic because it's terrified. Then there's the dog that jumps around the back seat from window to window or from back to front seat. Seems a tether/seat belt/crate law would just make more sense. |
| This is the first I've heard of it. Seems bizarre and over the top. Sometimes you just can't regulate "stupid". I've seen people read, text, drop something, put on mascara, etc. while driving. I had to look twice at the woman applying mascara with her head up in her mirror, because I could not believe my eyes.....hopefully, she didn't end up winning a Darwin Award. Oscar is always belted into a harness in the back seat whenever he travels with me. I just picture him as a projectile if I have to slam on the brakes, or God forbid, get into an accident. The thought of him flying through the windshield is beyond horrifying. I get belted in. He gets belted in. Laurie and Oscar |
| The idea of loose cats in the car made me laugh out loud. Perhaps a better idea would've been to just ticket the person for making the most ridiculous decision ever. |
| They need to work on banning use of cellphones and texting while driving before worrying about pets. If only there were a way to legislate common sense. |
| Well, I guess maybe I should not mention this, but there were some times when we let our cat Nut Nut ride loose in the car. We were doing 13 hour road trips to & from Georgia. He would just lie on the top of his crate and he just LOVED hanging out there looking out the window. He was more like a dog than a cat though and we felt bad that he was couped up in his crate for so long. We weren't exactly taking him for walks at rest stops. Anyone want to start a mobile vet service in Oregon? I can create the promotional graphics...  |
| ^^ guilty as well. Ours is more calm laying on a pillow in the car than locked up from tx to alaska. not to mention, it's not like cats pee on demand. She needed free access to the litterbox in the back. |
| I suspect the law states all animals must be in crates when in a car. No doubt a little common sense will be found when it comes to furthering this piece of silliness thru the legislative process. Tho........it was Oregon, one of our more socialists states. |
SheepieMommy wrote: How the heck would you transport an animal to the vet or emergency clinic? Or to participate in a dog show? Or even to get it home from the breeder or shelter? There seems to be a lot to work through on this concept. These were my first thoughts exactly!! Makes no sense and I am sure most vets don't plan to make housecalls! Brenda thanks for the article--it appears that a bit of the story they did here contained a few of the facts in the article---but the news here did not present it that way at all.  They referred to the fatal accident with the cats and went on to state that MANY states were considering banning pets riding in cars even if they were harnessed to a seat and showed a picture of a little dog sitting in the front seat of a car harnessed to the seatbelt.Idiots!! I just get rather tired of all the 'regulation' about EVERYTHING--do they just sit around on a slow day and make up things to regulate to 'protect us from ourselves'?? Yes Oregon is where it all started evidently... |
Probably 20 years ago, I was taking a stray cat to the vet in a cardboard box. She flipped the lid and proceeded to put loose poop all over the car, including the ceiling, with her tail. (Of course we kept her!  http://oesusa.com/OurDog4.jpg) We quickly purchased a cat carrier. And we used to always drive with the dogs loose in the back seat of the Tahoe. Kind of scary to think about it now... they'd be standing up looking out the window.  Someone had an accident near the post office a few miles from us (a man's dog got in his way when driving and crashed... thankfully no humans were injured/killed but the dog died) and we started looking for seat belts. We buckle ourselves in, it just made sense to buckle our dogs in too.Quote: "A pet that weighs 50 pounds, in a 35 mph collision, is projected forward like a cannonball with 1,500 pounds of force, and that can cause critical injuries to the folks in the front seat," Miller said. That part of the article was amazing... most OESs weigh more that that. |
VerveUp wrote: :roll: Well, I guess maybe I should not mention this, but there were some times when we let our cat Nut Nut ride loose in the car. We were doing 13 hour road trips to & from Georgia. He would just lie on the top of his crate and he just LOVED hanging out there looking out the window. He was more like a dog than a cat though and we felt bad that he was couped up in his crate for so long. We weren't exactly taking him for walks at rest stops. Anyone want to start a mobile vet service in Oregon? I can create the promotional graphics... Well, I should rephrase that. How about "nervous loose cats?" A friend of ours has a cat that loves the car, too, but I know those cats are the minority! |
Mady wrote: They need to work on banning use of cellphones and texting while driving before worrying about pets. If only there were a way to legislate common sense. Really? With a cellphone and/or texting *I'M* in control of whether I take my eyes off the road. I have experience to know if I can glance down for 1/2 or 1 second. I know whether or not I can answer an incoming call safely. With a loose cat or unruly/unpredictable dog the animal is in control of the distraction. The advocates of electronic device banning love to cite studies showing how texting is as bad as (or even worse than) drunk driving. REALLY? With virtually every single teen and 20-whatever person in the country having and using cellphones and texting while driving over the last 5 to 10 years, where is the increase of fatalities? The rate of highway fatalities is way way down, correlating with a reduction of alcohol involved fatalities. In other words, the "texting distraction" is really insignificant. When anti-drunk driving enforcement started up, there was a correlated decrease in highway fatalities. While texting and talking increased, virtually no increase in fatalities. I'm not saying either is a great thing but.... good Lord. Do we really want the government controlling every aspect of our lives? Telling you what you can and can't do at every moment based on the flimsiest of evidence and hype? Now that they've won the hands-free battle and most states require it, advocates are of course saying that hands-free isn't the answer either; that "the problem" is one of mental distraction, not of the physical holding of the phone. What's next, no talking to your passengers? No arguing with your spouse? No burger on the fly? No smoking? Separate bubble compartment for the driver? Reduce the speed limit to 45? (Hey! It'll save energy too!) |
| This just makes me roll my eyes...I know they want to ban "distractions" while driving but if that were true they'd have banned children in cars years ago. At some point we just have to stop legislating everything. (And yes, I live in an area where cell phones and texting are banned...to the extreme...you can be ticketed heftily for texting or talking while stopped at a five minute long railway crossing with your car in park, or even turned off...it's absurd.) By the way, it's just resulted in people texting with their phones in their laps...a much bigger distraction! (I've never texted while driving a moving vehicle....but I see no reason why I cannot check my texts/email while stopped for an extended period waiting for a train.) |
| Now all that was off the top of my head. Want the backup for what I've said? Let's go to Ray LaHood's own http://www.distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/ for the spin (er... facts) What are the sources of distracted driving? (Well, the ones the Feds think are important, no pets, or smoking listed here!) * Using a cell phone * Eating and drinking * Talking to passengers * Grooming * Reading, including maps * Using a PDA or navigation system * Watching a video * Changing the radio station, CD, or Mp3 player. Got it? A whole list of no-no's. How many of all accidents involved "Distracted Driving" of all sorts? "20 percent of injury crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. (NHTSA)." How many of those are cell-phone related? "Of those killed in distracted-driving-related crashed, 995 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction (18% of fatalities in distraction-related crashes). (NHTSA)" [Note: no year given, and note that the phone was reported as a distraction but not necessarily listed as a/the CAUSE] So, 18% of 20% of all accidents are cell-phone related. That's 3.6% of all accidents. Lemme repeat that: 3.6% of accidents. In fact, over the last few years, fatal crashes and fatalities have DROPPED LIKE A STONE from about 43,000 to about 34,000 in 2009. Those darn cell-phoners!!! http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx Here's a good one!!! "The age group with the greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the under-20 age group – 16 percent of all drivers younger than 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted while driving. (NHTSA)" HEY!!! The under 20 group is BETTER (16% of under 20's vs 20% of everyone), yet they're the ones with restrictions! I wonder why? Maybe they don't vote but it makes their parents feel better! LOL (now THAT was an unexpected statistic! LOL) Oh wait... here it comes! "Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)" Oh Yeah! All those hugely impaired drunk-like drivers out there everyday all the time! We're awash in accidents because of them!! I'd like to see THOSE test conditions! I saw one test on TV where the tester waited for the driver to look down at his phone then started a crossing vehicle in front of him. The REALITY is most people use their devices wisely and are distracted only when they've pre-scanned things to ensure they're safe. They are impaired for a second at a time and do not pose the kind of risk that a drunk driver poses. That is COMPLETELY a cynical scare tactic by politicians who know better. Now 995 deaths is nothing to sneeze at, and we should look at ways to improve safety. But I don't want to give the federal government control over what is going on inside my car, and THAT is the agenda, and texting is the easy "common sense that isn't right" target. |
| I actually did hear this on the news in my area ( NY _ Long Island), but it was about dogs in the car not being allowed to be in the drivers lap or front seat unrestrained. Not that they couldn't be in the car ever. Just not sitting in the drivers lap. Don't think we have to worry about that rule However, I might add, driving with your dog in the car, even the back seat, can be a danger to him and you. Putting them in a crate or seat belt type restraint is recommended to protect the humans and the dog. |
| Thanks for looking up all the stats, Ron. I wanted to make the same argument but I was too lazy to do the research for actual numbers. I don't know if you still have it available, but do you know what percentage of total drivers that 995 is? My bigger issue with cell phones and texting is not accidents-- it's people so in their own conversations and cut off from what's going around them on the road that they slow down traffic and make driving really annoying for those around them. I kind of think of it more like a nation of drivers that are high on marijuana than drunk driving. |
| Didn't mean to piss people off with my cell phone comment. I walk to work every day and every day I have to be careful when I cross intersections because of people not paying attention to their driving because they are texting, hence my comment. I have yet to nearly be hit by a car by someone with a pet running wild in their car. So for me the cellphone is more dangerous than the pets in the car. No stats to back my claims up, just my own fear when walking to work. |
Mady wrote: Didn't mean to piss people off with my cell phone comment. I walk to work every day and every day I have to be careful when I cross intersections because of people not paying attention to their driving because they are texting, hence my comment. I have yet to nearly be hit by a car by someone with a pet running wild in their car. So for me the cellphone is more dangerous than the pets in the car. No stats to back my claims up, just my own fear when walking to work. I agree with you! I NEVER text when I am in town to stay on top of the defensive driving game! I am guilty of texting some on the interstates around here as they are so flat, straight and boring! I guess the fact that my dogs are trained to stay in the back seat is just crazy! |
Ron wrote: Now all that was off the top of my head. Want the backup for what I've said? Let's go to Ray LaHood's own http://www.distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/ for the spin (er... facts) What are the sources of distracted driving? (Well, the ones the Feds think are important, no pets, or smoking listed here!) * Using a cell phone * Eating and drinking * Talking to passengers * Grooming * Reading, including maps * Using a PDA or navigation system * Watching a video * Changing the radio station, CD, or Mp3 player. Got it? A whole list of no-no's. How many of all accidents involved "Distracted Driving" of all sorts? "20 percent of injury crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. (NHTSA)." How many of those are cell-phone related? "Of those killed in distracted-driving-related crashed, 995 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction (18% of fatalities in distraction-related crashes). (NHTSA)" [Note: no year given, and note that the phone was reported as a distraction but not necessarily listed as a/the CAUSE] So, 18% of 20% of all accidents are cell-phone related. That's 3.6% of all accidents. Lemme repeat that: 3.6% of accidents. In fact, over the last few years, fatal crashes and fatalities have DROPPED LIKE A STONE from about 43,000 to about 34,000 in 2009. Those darn cell-phoners!!! http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx Here's a good one!!! "The age group with the greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the under-20 age group – 16 percent of all drivers younger than 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted while driving. (NHTSA)" HEY!!! The under 20 group is BETTER (16% of under 20's vs 20% of everyone), yet they're the ones with restrictions! I wonder why? Maybe they don't vote but it makes their parents feel better! LOL (now THAT was an unexpected statistic! LOL) Oh wait... here it comes! "Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)" Oh Yeah! All those hugely impaired drunk-like drivers out there everyday all the time! We're awash in accidents because of them!! I'd like to see THOSE test conditions! I saw one test on TV where the tester waited for the driver to look down at his phone then started a crossing vehicle in front of him. The REALITY is most people use their devices wisely and are distracted only when they've pre-scanned things to ensure they're safe. They are impaired for a second at a time and do not pose the kind of risk that a drunk driver poses. That is COMPLETELY a cynical scare tactic by politicians who know better. Now 995 deaths is nothing to sneeze at, and we should look at ways to improve safety. But I don't want to give the federal government control over what is going on inside my car, and THAT is the agenda, and texting is the easy "common sense that isn't right" target. Thanks Ron for that information. It really is about generating more MONEY for the coffers--!! They don't want us to know the real statistics! The big thing this week on the national news was about 'walking' and texting and the bans they are considering for that AND--not listening to an ipod when you are walking or running---more control means more money! |
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