Bill Barring Animals on Lap While Driving Clears Assembly

[The Straight Story]

Bill Barring Animals on Lap While Driving Clears Assembly

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Pull over and put down the dog.

A California lawmaker wants to ban motorists from holding pets on their laps while driving.

Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, said his legislation has nothing to do with pet-loving celebrities who are photographed driving around Los Angeles with their small dogs.

Maze said he introduced the bill after seeing a woman driving with three dogs on her lap. He said pets are a distraction that put motorists and their passengers at risk.

No lawmaker spoke in opposition to the bill, which passed the Assembly on a 44-11 vote on Monday and now goes to the state Senate.

http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=41594

Just wondering - did they bother to do a study of accidents where animals on the lap were involved?

[coriolis]

1. Save a tree, eat a

chainsaw.


;-)

[MercutioATC]

4. O.K. That deserves a DUZY.

[coriolis]

5. 388 tango charlie thanks you

:D

[Ahpook]

2. Oh geez... i feel so much better

America is on the right track, finally....

This fucking country is driving me insane

[riderinthestorm]

3. Put the damn dog in the backseat!

If you're in even the slightest collision any airbag will kill it, either on your lap as the driver or as a passenger in the passenger seat unless you own some 100 lb behemoth that can withstand the blast.

If you love your pet, put it in the back seat for gawd's sake. Common sense (and yes perhaps a law) should tell you that. Jayzus. I love my dog and she's trained to sit in the back - always. Minor fender benders can send that airbag out at warp speed and if the dog is less than 100 lbs (plus or minus a few), it's gonna kill it. If she's in the back, she'll just brace herself and endure but if she's in the front, she'd be dead.

I broke my wrist a few years ago and during rehab met many, many women with the classic colles fracture - a wrist fracture common to the forearm position while holding the steering wheel - from airbag deployments of the most innocuous kind. The force of airbag deployment is phenomenal.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

7. They should actually be crated or have a dog seatbelt on.

they don't fair much better in the backseat unrestrained.

David

[RebelOne]

11. My dog always rides in the back seat,

but that is because she is a 107-pound Rottweiler.

[InvisibleTouch]

6. Let's see, I have driven with...

...a small dog on my lap, and also a large python (not at the same time, of course). I use my cell phone while driving, too. Menace that I am. :)

[Hobarticus]

8. Isn't anyone concerned about the airbag?!?

A collision at 20-25 mph will deploy an airbag.

My wife used to drive around with her min-pin in her lap. If her airbag went off with him there, her weight pitching forward combined with the force of the airbag will severely injure or might actually kill her dog.

She doesn't do it anymore. Dogs don't know these things. We're supposed to protect them.

But hey, as long as it's cute.

[Indenturedebtor]

9. I can't get the damn dog out of my lap when I drive

Wife has the same problem... he just keeps climbing up.

First dog, poorly trained. If he didn't love us he wouldn't listen to us at all!

[Hobarticus]

10. LOL....I suspect my wife still lets him ride in her lap

I took both our dogs along on an errand, and exactly as I was merging on to the freeway, all of a sudden the min-pin climbs into my lap when I'm not looking. I damn near lost control, it startled me so much. I picked him up by the scruff and put him back in the passenger seat. I was more scared than angry. He never tried it again, at least not with me as far as I know.

Sneaky little bastard. He knows how to butter up mama to get his way, and gets to sit in her lap. It's probably their little secret they have on me.

:rofl: