For the moment, the engineers are using their own dogs as subjects.
In many ways, Johnson Controls engineers said this is the next step in vehicle safety, and a new, largely unstudied area in which there isn’t much data - and no government or industry standards. More than 43 million households have dogs and 36 million have cats, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“Cars are developed for people; they aren’t developed for dogs,” said Lindsey Wolko, chairwoman of the Center for Pet Safety in Reston, Va. “We have to get to the point we can have solutions that work for both. Dogs are the No. 1 traveling companion, and they have little protection in the marketplace.”
Wolko estimated there are millions of dogs - and cats - nationwide that could be saved from injury and death with more research, testing and better safety devices engineered specifically for pets.
Wolko founded the center in 2011 after her own dog, Maggie, an English cocker spaniel, was injured when the car she was in made an abrupt stop.
Even though Maggie was wearing a protective harness, the dog was badly injured.
After that experience, Wolko said, she realized many products don’t work as advertised, and that there was limited research being done to keep pets - particularly dogs, which tend to be bigger and move around more in cars than cats - safe in vehicles.
Animal restraints
In 2013, Subaru partnered with the small nonprofit Center for Pet Safety to test dog safety harnesses.
Last year, Consumer Reports published results from a study by the center.
“Despite good intentions,” the report said, “many owners who are buckling up their dogs may not be using a harness that will keep the animals or passengers safe.”
Of all the restraints tested, only one provided adequate protection.
Johnson Controls, which is based in Milwaukee and is spinning off its automotive seating and interiors business in the fall as its own company, said it aims to spend at least a year studying dogs and coming up with designs and standards that could help make vehicles safer for pets, especially as more self-driving technology is integrated into cars.
“The government does a great job of creating federal requirements for humans - and the vehicle itself,” said Eric Michalak, a chief engineer at Johnson Controls. “Now you have a large population of pet owners who have four-legged extended family members.”
But unlike the testing that is done to see how human bodies react in a crash, there is limited study on pets.
In some ways, the development of auto safety for pets may follow the evolution of safety for children, which came out of a demand for more child passenger protection in the 1960s, according to Safe Ride News, a publication aimed at child safety.
By the 1970s, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration adopted federal standards for child seating systems, and studies began showing that adults weren’t able to restrain children in their laps, even in low-speed crashes. In the 1980s, physicians got involved, more groups were created, and more safety standards and laws were adopted.
In the 1990s, groups and regulators focused on seat belts, air bags and seat anchoring and tethering systems, and in the 2000s manufacturers added these technologies to vehicles.
More study, awareness
Michalak, who with his wife and two kids owns a black Labrador named Remi, said it recently dawned on him when he braked hard to prevent his pickup from hitting a deer just how dangerous traveling in a vehicle could be for a dog. The abrupt stop threw Remi into the dashboard.
Remi wasn’t injured, he said, but could have been. What’s more, he said, an unrestrained dog could be dangerous to a driver or passengers.
“If you have a 60-pound dog in a crash, it’s now a flying object,” Michalak said. “That can cause injury, even if you are properly restrained.”
To study the issue, the auto supplier asked for volunteers - dog owners who worked at the company - and surveyed them. Then researchers observed and recorded video of how the dogs got in and out of vehicles and what they did while riding. It also gathered a group to begin sketching what a safer car might look like.
One person in the group, Becky Joyce, has three dogs that ride in the back of her Ford Escape. She’d like to put them in harnesses to protect them, but the dogs are too large.
There also is nothing in the vehicle to attach a harness to, something that Johnson Controls could develop.
Nancy Koco, who has a 13-year-old Cockapoo, said the project has made her think about not only her dog’s safety but also her own - and that of her teen daughters. Even though their dog, Maggie, is just 15 pounds, in an accident that could be dangerous.
“Think about a loose bowling ball - and that bowling ball taking off and hitting someone in the head or face,” Koco said.
The group at Johnson Controls is a long way from developing solutions. By next year, it hopes to develop some standards.
Engineers estimate it will take a decade or more before safety devices and applications for pets can be used universally.
The recent efforts were a start.
“We want to understand the future of pet travel safety - and what it should look like,” said Wolko, of the pet safety nonprofit. “Because of the work Johnson Controls has done with seating development in automobiles, this could lead to a whole new world of pet safety.”
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