ohmidog!

Doggie seat belts may not always be life savers.

A test of four brands of harnesses by the recently formed Center for Pet Safety found none afforded much protection, NBC News reports.

Restraints for traveling dogs in cars have become increasingly popular, and lawmakers in New Jersey are considering a bill mandating them.

But in simulated accidents, the four brands tested didn’t perform well.

“It was just astounding what we saw,” said Lindsey Wolko, who founded the non-profit Center for Pet Safety in 2011 after getting into a car accident while traveling with her dog. The harness failed and her dog Maggie suffered spinal injuries.

The tests applied the same federal motor vehicle safety standards for testing child seats. Using a 55 pound stuffed test dog, Wolko and her team simulated a 30-mile-per-hour collision. You can find video of all four tests here.

In one case the harness allowed too much slack, and the dog crashed into the back of the front seat. In two others, the harnesses snapped, sending the dogs flying through the air. And in a fourth, the harness slid up to the dog’s neck on impact.

“I don’t think that there’s any doubt that those dogs would have been seriously injured, if not fatally injured,” Wolko said.

The manufacturers are not being identified by the center. “Our primary concern is NOT to attack individual manufacturers for selling well-intentioned products. If we share brands at this early stage in our work, we shift the focus away from what is truly needed: measurable, safe standards that manufacturers can follow for the benefit of consumers,” the center says on its website.

Unlike with human restraints, those made for dogs are not tested or regulated by the government and there are no existing safety standards in place.

The American Pet Products Association, in response to Wolko’s findings, released a statement saying, “.. there are an increasing number of reported accidents where a pet distracting the driver is being cited as the cause. A pet restraint that merely limits a pets access and distraction to the driver and limits its motion in the event of an accident is still an improvement over no restraint.”

Gov. Chris Christie says if the New Jersey legislature passes a bill requiring dogs and cats to wear seat-belt like restraints in cars he won’t sign it.

Christie termed the proposal ”stupid,” Bloomberg reports.

He also said the proposed law was an example of how Democrats, who control the state Senate and General Assembly, are wasting time with trivial issues when there are bigger ones to be solved.

“This will tell you everything you need to know about how New Jersey runs under the Democrats,” Christie said in his monthly “Ask the Governor” broadcast on Ewing-based WKXW-FM radio. “They’re actually spending their time on this.”

If the bill makes it through the legislature for him to sign into law, Christie said, he wouldn’t put his name “near something that stupid.”

Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer,  a Newark Democrat who owns a Pomeranian , introduced the bill to require harnesses for animals not being transported in cages. Violators would be fined $25.

New Jersey is cracking down on those who fail to use seat belts — dogs included.

And the fine for an unrestrained dog — unlike the $46 one for an unbuckled human — can cost you up to $1,000.

Because it’s considered animal cruelty under state law, penalties for transporting your dog without a restraint range from $250 to $1,000 and as much as six months in jail.

“That’s for each offense,” Col. Frank Rizzo, the police superintendent for the New Jersey SPCA, told reporters this week. “So, if you have more than one animal loose in your car, just do the math.”

Rizzo and representatives from the state the Motor Vehicle Commission briefed reporters about the law as New Jersey entered the initial phase of its “Click It or Ticket” campaign, at the outset of which police in 23 Bergen and Passaic county towns issued 359 tickets for back-seat violations — none of them involving dogs.

While some reports are calling the doggie seat belt mandate a new law, the Bergen Record’s Road Warrior column reports that leaving your dog unrestrained in the back seat of your car violates state statute 4:22:18, which is 16 years old.

(An unbuckled adult human in the back seat only became illegal in New Jersey three years ago.)

Rizzo said the high fines will help people become aware of the dangers of dogs traveling in cars unrestrained. “Some people tell us they like to let their pets hang their heads out the window to take in the fresh air, but dogs and cats become projectiles in a crash,”  Rizzo said.

“It’s much cheaper to invest about $25 in a restraint system than to deal with the consequences of a crash,” said MVC Chief Administrator Ray Martinez, who used his own golden retriever-poodle mix to show reporters how to harness a dog into a back seat.

Patch.com, in an unscientific online poll, was finding little support for mandating dog restraints, and found few police officers interested in enforcing it.

“Seriously, the best part of my day is hitting the road with my dog sitting right beside me in my truck.” said one veteran officer said who asked not to be identified.

Another thought the law was intrusive, and its penalties too severe.

We welcome your thoughts on this topic (and everything else, too, of course), and we’ll share our own, bearing in mind I only started wearing my seat belt about six years ago, when I bought a new car, and only to stop the eternal dinging that resulted when I didn’t put it on.

Ace doesn’t wear a seat belt or restraint. At 130 pounds, he travels loose in the folded down back seat, sometimes with his head resting on the console between the front seats. He does from time to time stick his head out the back window, though I discourage it on Interstate highways.

Having recently completed a year-long, 27,000 mile road trip with him, I can’t imagine what that would have been like for him if he had been strapped down the whole time.

Our trip was all about being free and liberated — for a year at least — and while I’m probably over-protective of him in most ways, this is a step that, while it’s becoming more and more politically correct, I don’t see taking.

Until authorities show up at my door, or pull me over in New Jersey, Ace rides free.