A loose dog in a car is not only a risk to itself. An excited dog moving around behind you is the thing the driver keeps glancing at instead of the road, and that is the part of the problem that gets other people hurt.

This is the simple answer to it: a short tether that goes into the seat belt lock at one end and onto the dog's travel harness at the other, so the dog can sit, stand and lie down but cannot get into the front or out of an opened door. It is fully adjustable for length, and the fastening clip swivels — which is the detail that stops the strap winding itself into a shorter and shorter twist over the course of a journey.

• Connects a travel harness to the seat belt lock
• Fastening clip swivels, so the dog does not get tangled
• Fully adjustable
• Sold singly
• Not suitable for Volvos

It only works with a harness, and no safety standard is quoted for it. This clips to a travel harness — never to a collar, which turns a sudden stop into a neck injury — so if you do not already own a harness you need one alongside this. And nothing supplied to us mentions a crash test, a standard or a weight rating, so treat it as a restraint that keeps a dog in its own half of the car rather than as tested crash protection. Happy Pet also state plainly that it is not suitable for Volvos, and they do not say why, so if you drive one this is not your belt.

Who it's for: anyone whose dog already travels in a harness and currently rides loose on the back seat — short school-run journeys, trips to the woods, and drivers who would rather not have a nose appearing between the front seats at a roundabout.