Our dog crates are THE safest you can buy, but what makes them the safest?
All of our competitors use solid, strong boxes as the basis of their dog crate design. Sounds safe?
That’s what car designers thought in the 1940s, prior to the findings of Béla Barényi, a Daimler Benz engineer, who completely revolutionized car safety design. For decades prior to his work, vehicle engineers had worked on the basis that the stronger and more rigid a vehicle body could be, the better the protection of the driver and passengers in the event of an accident.
Barényi’s studies in the 1940s showed, however, that by designing such solid structures in vehicle body construction, the forces generated in the event of an impact were transferred to the occupants with hardly any prior absorption. This meant that passengers were thrown around in the vehicle, causing injuries, often fatal. The same applies to dog crates, leading to severe injuries or fatalities in the event of a collision.
In order to protect passengers better, Barényi started to design vehicles with crumple zones, areas of a car’s frame that are intentionally designed to deform and crumple in a crash. The crumple zone absorbs the impact of the collision and reduces the amount of force that is transferred to the passenger compartment. Crumple zones are now a key safety feature in all modern vehicles at the front and back of the vehicle, the areas of a vehicle that are most often damaged in a collision, protecting us in the event of an accident.
The principle behind crumple zones is relatively simple. When a car is involved in a collision, the kinetic energy of the moving vehicle is converted into deformation energy as the car crumples. By increasing the time it takes for the collision to occur, the amount of force that is transferred to the passenger compartment is reduced, resulting in less severe injuries to the occupants.
MIMsafe engineers use this information to design dog crates with their own built-in mechanism that absorbs the impact of a collision, protecting dogs from being thrown around inside our crates. We are the ONLY dog crate manufacturer to include this built-in protective feature. But our superior dog crate designs don’t end there – we also ensure that our dog crates work with, rather than against, your vehicle’s crumple zone.
At the rear of the car, where dog crates are typically placed, crumple zones are designed to absorb the force of a rear-end collision. This is typically achieved through the use of reinforced structural elements and energy-absorbing materials such as foam or plastic. By deforming in a controlled way, the crumple zone helps to reduce the severity of the impact and protect the passengers from injury.
However, adding a solid, rigid dog crate into the boot of your vehicle impairs the crumple zone in the event of an accident. A rear impact with something so solid can break or damage the rear seat causing severe or fatal injury to passengers, as the crate is pushed through into the body of the vehicle.
This video demonstrates how this could happen:
This is why it’s so important to choose a crate that:
1. Absorbs energy in the event of an accident to protect your dog
2. Works with your vehicle’s crumple zone to protect passengers
MIMsafe VarioCages are built to ensure that both of these conditions are met, making VarioCages the safest crates worldwide.
