chelly77

Hi Guys,

I know that you need to restrain you dog in the car and always have done with our little man, but now that we have a baby we are looking at getting a wagon/estate style car with a dog guard in the boot.
My question is do we still need to have the dog restrained in teh boot even if we have the dog guard up?

I've had a look at the RTA website and its not very clear and I've had a google search and havent found a definate yes or no.

Any help would be fab

spuddyo

I have a dog guard up and consider it to be a restraint. The main issue is with dogs distracting or jumping on a driver, so locked up in the back he is suitably restrained I would have thought. In my opinion the whole point is to protect you, not your dog . I still regulalrly see people driving around with dogs on their lap, so I'm sure plod would be more interested in them than us.

Wendy66

Dog cage, harness or properly fitted dog guard up in your car are all suitable and comply

KJCherokee

The problem with all rules and regulations is that they have to be written in black and white with no shades of grey allowed. The shades of grey come in the way those rules are enforced.

Take for example the rules governing the modification of four wheel drive vehicles. Tyres cannot have a diameter more than 15mm larger than the original size and the vehicle cannot be raised more than a total of 50mm including the larger tyres. Now just about everyone who takes their car off-road breaks those rules - we've all seen 4x4s driving round with huge lifts and tyres - because you have to break the rules to get a decent off-road vehicle. Do the police stop and book them? No, because they have better things to do with their time - but they will add those charges to the list if they stop you for something else.

So as long as your dogs don't cause the car to sway all over the road as they run from side to side, I wouldn't worry about it.