Dogs in cars a danger. That must be a money-making opportunity.

Dogs in Cars - watch out for the fixed-penalty

We Brits are a nation of dog-lovers. We’re also a nation of car-lovers. Stick the two together and you have an awful lot of dogs travelling in cars. But maybe not for much longer.

A study in the US involving the AAA (the American AA) and a ‘Pet Supply Company’ has concluded that dogs in cars are a distraction and make for dangerous driving.

It seems that 52 per cent of drivers admit to the heinous crime of stroking their dogs whilst driving, and a massive sixty-five percent admit “…engaging in at least one potentially distracting activity while driving with their dog.”  We rather suspect the wording of that may not have come from the dog-owning drivers.

Police in two American Cities have been busy issuing fixed-penalties for what they call ‘Distracted Driving’, and this looks like it will be another reason to stop and ticket drivers; you have a dog in the car, ergo you’re not driving with due care and attention.

How long will it be before our avaricious local authorities and police forces in the UK cotton on to this latest bit of nonsense to relieve motorists of what little money they have left after years of over-zealous action by Police to garner ever-increasing revenue?

The time is rapidly approaching when our law-makers are going to insist car makers put the driver in a bubble, away from any and all ‘distractions’. We already see drivers getting fixed penalties for eating an apple or sipping a drink – even when stuck in traffic – and there are calls to make it illegal to smoke in the car, change the music, make a hands-free call, in fact do anything but look at the road and ‘drive’.

But as a driver with over 2 million accident-free miles under his belt I can tell you that it’s not those little distractions that are the cause of most accidents, it’s boredom. All these little distractions law makers want to legislate against keep you alert. Make drivers focus on just the driving and accidents will go up, not down. Surely that’s common sense?

But common sense isn’t at the bottom of all these restrictions. It’s money.

By Cars UK