While I was researching vehicle safety harnesses and obsessing over crash tests on YouTube, I had several people tell me that they had dispensed with the question entirely by securing their dog in a crate in the car. Many people seemed to have the notion that crates were the absolute safest option, and I thought so too until I found these videos.
Holy crap! When an animal hits the inside of a plastic crate in a collision, the crate EXPLODES! The seatbelt puts stress on a very small area of the crate, and the plastic breaks. Those car barriers designed to keep dogs in the back of a hatchback of SUV are also going to fail as soon as a dog hits them with the force of the collision.
Fortunately, this video does have a very important lesson. Plastic crates should not be buckled into the car with a seatbelt, the safest way for a pet to ride in a crate is with the long side of the crate contacting the back of a seat in the car. This will spread the force out so that the crate hopefully does not break, but the pet is still going to hit the side of the crate very hard. After watching these videos, I do not feel safe transporting my dogs in crates. The Center for Pet Safety is currently doing a study on crates in collisions, and will hopefully begin to dispel the notion that crates are automatically safer.
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