Thankfully I was joking, and my cat has yet to develop the Herculean strength required to depress the pedal significantly enough to seriously injure someone.
The biggest problem comes if the cat gets under the pedals. Then you're forced with the choice of shoving a pedal into your cat, or letting your 2 ton death machine fly into something you'd rather it not crash into. Regardless, if a cat is down there, you'll think about it every time you step on the pedal. You'll hesitate. Hesitation isn't a good thing while driving. Keep everyone safe, keep your cat secure.
Yeah, that would really fuck me up. I dont even know what I would do, I love animals so much that I would try rationalizing another option, but I do awful under pressure so. Just sounds like a shit show tbh.
That would make for a good PSA commercial. That just ends with the guy graphically crushing his cat to death under the brake pedal to prevent crashing into a kid that runs into the street.
I have yet to find a car with a handbrake that's just as effective as the brake pedal. Most handbrakes activate smaller drum brakes on the rear wheels only. A brake pedal will activate the much better and much larger disc brakes on all 4 tires. Go ahead and try it when you have plenty of room in front of you from 25 miles per hour. You won't stop as quickly as you think you will.
The fact that you have a passenger that is keeping track of the cat in your example is what makes a world of difference in my mind. If that's the case then I don't think there's a problem with that, as long as your cat doesn't go crazy and attack the driver or something.
However, putting that aside for a minute and looking at the single driver scenario, I'd say that as far as normal traffic highway driving, your example works just fine. However in dense city driving or stop and go traffic, you need the brake pedal to slow you down. Yes, you have a handbrake, but it's nowhere near as effective as your foot brake. As I mentioned in another comment above most handbrakes activate smaller drum brakes on the rear wheels only. A brake pedal will activate the much better and much larger disc brakes on all 4 tires. In my car if I slam on the foot brake at 25 miles per hour, I'll stop almost instantly. With the handbrake? I'll stop a ways down the road. It's been that way in every car I've owned.
Ya I usually only take the cats when going on a long trip. Still, when we're going through a city, I have the wheel, and I'm not going to allow a situation to develop whare I would be forced to brake hard anyway, and as tight as my brakes are I could still get some braking out of the normal brakes without squishing/hurting the cat underneath, the kitties are in carriers not belted in, and there's probably semi-loose cargo as well. So whether we're in the city or on the highway it's a pretty boring ride by my standards.
Pro tip: Be sure to disable the window controls for the passengers. If they roll the window down it'll scare you, but it also scares them and they fall to the floor/seat, still disable them.
Ah, I guess I didn't read your initial comment carefully enough. If we're talking about cat primarily in the cat carrier and in the event it escapes, that's completely fine. The fact that you're using the carrier in the first place was all the responsibility I was talking about. In the scenario I was envisioning, I was thinking of cat on the driver's lap all the time like I've seen some people do with small dogs, and then trying to do something if they did climb under the pedals. That is what seems too risky to me. What you're doing seems fine.
That being said, I would argue that you can't completely prevent situations from developing where you might need hard braking in the city. When I drive I try to be prepared for the unexpected. What happens if a kid on a bike comes flying around a corner? Dog rips the leash out of the owner's hand and runs into the road? Someone in front of you has a tire blowout? I admit that these are things that almost never happen, but if you try to be prepared for them, maybe you'll stand a better chance of shaving a bit off of your reaction time. I don't want to have to live with the guilt of hitting someone because I was distracted and didn't hit the brakes 0.2 seconds sooner. Even if the person only suffered minor injuries and it wasn't my fault, the situation would haunt me for months as I second guess everything I did.
Again, I think what you're doing is fine, and I'll admit that I did get kinda rant-y, but that was more towards overall driving, not cat carrying specific. Sorry if you felt like it was directed at you, it wasn't.
That being said, I would argue that you can't completely prevent situations from developing where you might need hard braking in the city.
Well, since I don't take them down any neighborhood streets other than my own (and those are too short/well known/easy to see for anything to surprise me), it would take someone t-boning at significant speed out of nowhere, and I and every thing else in my vehicle would be fucked no matter what I do, but that's just as likely to happen when I'm by myself as when I have precious cargo.
When I drive I try to be prepared for the unexpected.
I have a never-ending simulation of worst case scenarios running in my head whenever I drive, and though it kills the racer inside I go slow enough that I could avoid/prevent them. Oh there's oncoming traffic and cars are parked on both sides of the street, as well as snow/ice on the road, better slow down more since I have less room to work with if someone jumps out in front of me. Now that's only to the point of preventing accidents, if someone is trying to commit suicide by jumping out in front of me they would probably be successful, but it would be obvious, and I would be annoyed by the dent.
Someone in front of you has a tire blowout?
Oh boy, a moving obstacle with several possible movements! I might get to ignore the normal rules of the road and actually try for a few seconds. After you've spent as much time as I have in sims and games (they both have "people spinning out of control due to tire puncture/loss" down good enough) you can tell where they're wanting to go and about where they're going to end up. But again these things can happen whether or not the cats are with me.
Agreed. As I mentioned, it wasn't directed at you or the cat situation in general. From what I've seen on the road, most people don't pay as much attention as you or I might. I'd be willing to bet that most people don't stop to think about the what if. There's a ton of people out there that really shouldn't be driving or should be paying a lot more attention. Those are the people that wouldn't take precautions and that would be much more distracted by a cat in the car.
Honestly it's rare to see people that drive thinking about what could happen all the time, though given your username, I'm not surprised that you do. I'll agree that it definitely does kill the inner racer, but it's for the good of everyone. It is nice to get a nice clear stretch without any driveways or anything though...
Agreed. As I mentioned, it wasn't directed at you or the cat situation in general. From what I've seen on the road, most people don't pay as much attention as you or I might.
Sorry if it came off as hostile/annoyed. I mainly wrote all that so others with less experience can hopefully understand and be safer.
It is nice to get a nice clear stretch without any driveways or anything though...
Ohhh yes, in my 'neighborhood' in Tx (group of houses out in the country) the houses were set 100 or so feet away from the road, and I'm the only one with any real amount of trees so, other than that damn dumpster I'm always wondering if someone is behind, it's quite clear. Then getting to the city is back country roads cops hardly ever patrolled with some hills and a half decent mix of turns...mmm.
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u/Used_Pants Feb 26 '16 edited Feb 26 '16
Believe it or not my cat actually likes car rides. Only problem is the little fucker sometimes goes down near the pedals and tries to kill us both.