At the start of next month a new law enters the American statute book. It is actually an extension of an existing law nicknamed the “Good Samaritan Law” which was passed to allow people to lawfully break into a car if they saw a child trapped inside.

The law is now to be extended to cover animals so that if, for example, you were to see a dog locked in a car, gasping for breath on a hot sunny day you could break into the car and rescue the animal without fear of criminal prosecution or any civil liability to the car owner.

The move has been welcomed by animal welfare groups concerned by numerous incidents of dogs left in locked cars in the heat of summer to literally roast to death or die of asphyxiation. Opponents of the law say that it smacks of big brother but if it means that people remember to leave their car windows open when locking pets inside then surely, it is a good thing.

Anyway, irrespective of legislation, I would hope that any decent human being could not ignore and walk past a locked car containing distressed infants or animals on a hot day. The first action would be to quickly try to find the owner of the car but if that proved fruitless the second would be to force entry or break the window and then face the legal consequences. Life, human or animal, is too important for any other response.