Dog on Roof Non-scandal?

Maybe in 2012 we are all "enlightened" about pet abuse and all that jazz.  However, back in 1983, the year of Mitt Romney's incident with Seamus the dog, my parents would have just as easily put me on the roof of the car in a kennel with a windshield. There were no seat belt laws at the time.  Often we piled as many people into our cars as we could shove in there (without seat belts), looking like a clown car with older kids holding younger kids on their lap.  We would ride in the back of trucks for miles on the highway. This is a non-issue.  Dogs love wind.   The kennel had a windshield.  The way I heard about it the first time, there was an image of a dog standing on the roof of a car and someone getting into the car.  This would obviously be bad.  This is not what happened.  Can someone inform me what the "responsible" way to take a dog on vacation with you is?  Shove it into the passenger area of an overly crowded packed down van?  I'm sure that's much more humane.