Transporting an engine

[Peter.N.]

I take your point and appreciate there is a certain ammount of risk involved but the XM is a very strong car with very large seats, I don't think you could brake hard enough to generate the ammount of force necessary to crush the seats - if you ran into something hard, that's something else. I don't drive fast or close, that's as safe as I can get.

Peter

[andmcit]

I did say restrain the weight safely. Something off the net about dogs as
back seat passengers and whilst not to taken as gospel (you cannot believe
everything you read right?) is still worth reading and thinking about:

Several years ago, the German automobile club (ADAC) conducted crash tests with human and dog dummies. The purpose of these tests was to evaluate exactly what happens in an accident with unrestrained dogs. The facts are rather sobering.

The test was set up to simulate a typical front-end collision at about 30-mph. Two human dummies were in the front seats, two dummy dogs loose in the back of the car. One of the dummy dogs weighed about 13 pounds, the other one about 70 pounds. What happened from the moment of impact was measured in milliseconds (one millisecond is one 1000th of a second) and took no more than 500 milliseconds to take place.

After 90 milliseconds the small dog was flying at head level of the front seat passengers. At this point he was already half way to the front seats. He took off from his perch right under the rear window. The large dog was on the back seat and after those 90 milliseconds he had already crashed into the back of the driver’s seat, pressing the passenger hard into the seatbelt.

After 142 milliseconds the heads of both dogs appeared above the heads of the humans. The small dog hit the head of the passenger dummy as its head was flying backwards.

At 187 milliseconds the small dog smashed into the windshield, breaking it. It took another 200 milliseconds for the dogs to finally end their destructive path and come to a rest.

The result? Two dead dogs and two most likely extremely seriously injured humans. The injuries to the humans were increased due to the dogs hitting the front seat and the head of the human dummy. Mostly luck that the dogs did not kill the passengers. Because at the moment of impact the dogs' weight was multiplied by 30. Which means the small dog hit the passenger’s head with 396 pounds. The large dog hit the back of the human dummy with 2112 pounds!

So far for the study. The law of physics does not differentiate between humans, dogs or grocery bags. Which means anything loose in your car will multiply its weight by 30! During a 30-mph collision a small animal in a small, unsecured crate can do just as much damage. If you use a crate and try to secure it, keep in mind whatever you use for that purpose must be able to hold the dog’s weight x 30 plus the weight of the crate x 30.

Andrew

[Peter.N.]

I assume that those figures are for a saloon/hatch, an estate is rather a different matter. The dogs would or should be in the rear compartment, firstly this doesn't give them a lot of room to accelerate before hitting the back seat. The rear seat on the XM is very firmly anchored and if it did give way it would have considerably slowed the dog/dogs down before they approached the front seats.

I agree that having dogs loose in a car is very dangerous, not only from the impact point of view but also from that of distraction and interference with controls. We carry a german shepherd in the rear of our estate, if the load bay is full she sits on the floor at the front under my wifes control so is already forward of the passengers.

We had thought about teaching her to drive but thought it may attract undue attention

Peter

[andmcit]

TBH Peter, I'd trust a German Shepherd driving more than many of the morons
out here that's for sure! Plus, I'm a big softie with dogs and would be more
upset about ANY harm to them too!

Andrew

[Citroenmad]

Does anyone remember the old fifthgear episode where they were trying out dangerous luggage? They had a car rigged to a test platform, various things were placed in the car and the test performed by reversing the platform at high speed suddenly - generating the same outcome as driving into something.

It was shocking to discover that even things placed in the boot of this saloon car burst through the backseats on impact and contined on to hit the driver. Crushing the front seats and pressing the driver against the steering wheel. However this particular car seemed to have very weak backseats, i dont think it was quite right, even supermarket shopping burst through into the passenger comparment.

Certainly something to be careful about, though strapping the load down, driving carefully with a good distance infront and keeping an eye on changing traffic conditions and you will be ok.

[Peter.N.]

My wife wrote one of my prized XM estates off last year, hit a traffic island, demolished a keep left sign and a lamp post and ended up in a bus shelter. She had in the car with her our daughter in law and two grandchildren, she sustained the worst injuries, seat belt bruising and air bag burn, none of the other occupants apparantly suffered any serious injury apart from mild whip lash. The o/s front was right back on the bulkhead and the windscreen broken, the amazing thing was though that nothing inside moved and the shell was undistorted, all the doors opened and fitted correctly.

My point is that an impact that can move things from the back of a car with sufficient velocity to severly injure the occupants, would probably cause serious injury anyway.

This was her first accident in 40 years of driving so couldn't be cross for long, especially as I had a collision in the hatch about a month ago, only my second claim in 40 years, and it was entirely my fault

Peter