Traveling in the summer is always a major concern especially if it involves pets. We’ve all seen the demonstrations where somebody cracks an egg onto the hood of a car that has been sitting out in the sun for a short time only to revel that in seconds it’s literally fried to a crisp. Though keeping a pet in a car while you run into a store to do an errand may seem like nothing to get so worried about, it is in fact a very serious matter once you consider how quickly the inside of the vehicle can heat up thus exposing your pet to unhealthy temperatures.
Well just around the corner a new safety system may be available that could save your pet’s life thanks to one Canadian teenager. Brian Larson of Edmonton is currently making plans to introduce an alarm that will alert pet owners as to the point in which the temps inside their vehicles are too high for their furry passengers. The way Brian puts it the system will consist of a sensor located on the dashboard of the vehicle that will record the temperature and humidity as they rise. Once dangerous levels are reached a signal is then sent to a key fob (similar to the one used to lock/unlock your average vehicle) which then alerts the pet’s owner that they must do something to cool the pet off.
“I think most pet owners know that vehicles can get very hot, but they just don't realize how fast it happens. My device would give (pet owners) time to get back to the car before their pet suffered from heatstroke.” says Brian. Even though the system is still in it’s early testing phases, Brian has managed to bend the ear and acquire support from scientists at NAIT (North Alberta Institute Of Technology). By the end of the year the team expects to have a full prototype completed and as for Brian “I think I can save the police and humane societies a lot of time and I also think pet owners will want to know that their pet is safe.”