Poll: Roadkill

[anna7602]

Nope, but I got nasty whiplash from a crazy, last-minute swerve to avoid hitting a deer. (I was a passenger, not the driver.)

Reason 452 I am so happy to live in urban areas where I don't need to drive. Worrying about something running into the road in front of your car sucks.

[wise_rita]

I hit a gopher in my drivers end car. Slightly traumatic!

Then I kept hitting birds with my car for a while. Nothing major or a great loss to nature.

Poor snake. I love big-ass snakes.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using proboards

[ravenray]

I've hit birds and squirrels before. I still feel bad about that bird; it was a robin.
My dad almost hit a bear once.

[crimsonandclover]

There are people who regularly drive and have never hit anything before???

I grew up in a rural area. On the list that I remember are several birds, 1.5 raccoons (I think one was already dead, definitely already hit, and the other was standing over it looking at it "Hey, Fred, are you ok?" and then looked up in time to see my headlights... I would have swerved because they were big fat raccoons, but I didn't see them in time because of on-coming headlights), and a deer. Technically the deer hit me, though. It jumped out of a ditch and ran into the side of my car. I don't know that it killed it, but it definitely had some injuries, as did my driver's side door, back door, and gas tank.

I may have hit squirrels, don't remember. The most traumatizing wasn't one that I hit - I was driving home from high school past the town's vet office and a cat must have escaped. It ran across the road and I saw and heard it get hit by an oncoming car. :- ( I don't even know that the proximity to the vet's office could have saved it, but I also didn't stick around to find out. In my head the vet ran out, carried it inside, did emergency surgery, and the cat is now 25 years old and still healthy.

[echo]

where I grew up,armadillos,squirrels,and deer.Now I have to avoid the porcupines.........I am afraid they would take out my tires

[CakeLover]

I don't think I've hit anything. DH is the one who kills things with his car. I've been in the car with him when he hit a baby bunny and a snake. While here he accidently hit the only koala he's ever seen out of captivity. Poor koala.

[allibally]

I've never hit something as far as I've noticed.

[ktkl09]

While H and I were driving from Paris to Geneva on New Year's Day, around 11pm, somewhere near Bourge-en-Bresse a large badger jumped out onto the highway and hit us. We were driving around 120km/h. The car was destroyed. Our Swiss insurance sent us a French towing truck, who the driver didn't believe we had insurance and decided half-way through the drive he needed to verify the insurance and if not he was going to leave us on the side of the road in rural France in the middle of the night, when it was in the negatives outside. He verified the insurance, took us to his "garage" then left us out in the cold outside of the garage while he went to another accident. It took an hour for the taxi to come.

Best part was when the roadkill services truck came and the driver asked if we wanted to take the badger with us. H asked if we could eat it, the roadkill guy said no. H told him no then.

[glitterfart]

Nope.

[mrsukyankee]

I'm actually amazed that I haven't considering I spent a lot of time driving in the States (particularly as my family lives in nowhere PA).

[GilliC]

I'm sure I've hit a small bird or squirrel, because there have been so many close calls, but I've never circled back to check.

I was in a car that hit a cat in my hometown once. I think I cried.

[americaninoz]

python??? OMFG!

when I was a teenage driver in MN I once hit a squirrel - I swear he looked at me like 'OMG' just before I hit him - I felt terrible

[americaninoz]

speaking of deer though -
my brother has a pacer - exactly replicated to look like the one from Waynes World
my dad hit a deer on the highway driving that and the head went through the windshield & the body went on top of the car - ruined the car- and thankfully my dad only had glass shattered on him
my Mom hit a deer a few weeks ago - mostly just banged up the side of the car - I'm glad it has encouraged her to get rid of her little car and get something bigger/safer !

[clogged]

Oh heck yes. I am the grim reaper of the small animal world.

not by choice, of course.

[crimsonandclover]

Dec 13, 2012 1:07:44 GMT -5 clogged said:

Oh heck yes. I am the grim reaper of the small animal world.

not by choice, of course.

That just made me laugh and brightened up my morning. Thank you, Ms. Reaper :-)

[GilliC]

Dec 13, 2012 1:17:20 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

Dec 13, 2012 1:07:44 GMT -5 clogged said:

Oh heck yes. I am the grim reaper of the small animal world.

not by choice, of course.

That just made me laugh and brightened up my morning. Thank you, Ms. Reaper :-)

This makes we want to re-watch Dead Like Me.

[tktravels]

Within a month of getting my driver's license, I had an unfortunate encounter with a puppy.

I had just dropped a friend off, and was driving very slowly down her street when her neighbor's puppy decided to chase the car. The pup must have ran into the side of my wheel, yelped, and scampered off.

I didn't see him run away, only saw him approaching and heard the yelp and got hysterical thinking I just killed a puppy.

[lys]

totaled my car by hitting a deer

[elenetxu]

I somehow survived 10 years of New England/Atlantic Canada with no deer/moose/bear incidents.
Toads, however, go pop.

[elenetxu]

Dec 12, 2012 2:58:27 GMT -5 @ktkl09 said:

Best part was when the roadkill services truck came and the driver asked if we wanted to take the badger with us. H asked if we could eat it, the roadkill guy said no. H told him no then.

Lil' brother once got scolded pretty heavily by the Mass cops for starting to try and bring home a deer he hit just a mile from the NH border. It he was a mile north, we would've had venison for a good, long time!

[Deleted]

No, thank heavens. It's the #1 thing I worry about when I drive.
On the other hand, I've picked up and rescued animals off the side of the road innumerable times.

Once I was driving through a small town in Italy and saw a kitten falling from underneath the truck in front of me (no idea where it was hidden or why). I couldn't come to a full halt so I drove "over" it without touching it while slowing down as fast a I could. When I finally stopped I literally propelled myself out of the car, stopped the traffic and ran to pick up the kitten that was lying there in the middle of the road. Too late, the kitty was lifeless I laid it down in the car and cried the whole way to a field where I buried it.

[allibally]

Dec 14, 2012 22:20:54 GMT -5 @publius said:

Dec 14, 2012 17:01:35 GMT -5 elenetxu said:

Lil' brother once got scolded pretty heavily by the Mass cops for starting to try and bring home a deer he hit just a mile from the NH border. It he was a mile north, we would've had venison for a good, long time!

When I changed my NY license in for an OH one they made me take the written portion of the driving test. One of the questions on it was who has the right to take a deer killed by a car.

Apparently it's in the IL one too.

[Cheesecake]

Never hit anything that I know of. Though if a big ass snake would get under my wheels I wouldn't mind. I'm really damn scared of snakes and there are too damn many of them in Colorado. Fortunately not so many here. Here all I have to look out for with roadkill is birds and small domestic animals.

Sent from my phone, please disregard typos!

[aMrsin09]

In MI you can keep the dead deer.

I have driven over at least three BIG snakes her. They are sometimes dead already and sometimes too slow to get out of the way.

In the states I hit a bunny once.

[Deleted]

Many, many years ago I hit a cat once while driving home from work. It was a very dark, curvy road going up the side of a hill with railing on the side. By the time I saw the cat I had no time to react and ran over it.
Actually had a guy that was driving behind me follow me more than 5 miles to Safeway where he drove around the parking lot in a big circle before finally driving off.

[mouseinlux]

I've hit a rabbit.

Funny story though, our neighbor had a bird fly into his car through an open window which caused him to flip the car. We walked away unscathed!

[Deleted]

Dec 16, 2012 9:42:59 GMT -5 mouseinlux said:

Funny story though, our neighbor had a bird fly into his car through an open window which caused him to flip the car. We walked away unscathed!

Geez.... I've had a couple close calls with birds on a motorcycle but that is unfathomable.

[Wanderista]

Wow, luckily I have not knowingly killed anything yet. I break for small animals but luckily that generally always happens on quiet backroads with no one behind me. I have rescued turtles including a turtle that was sunning itself in a highspeed bike lane. I walked it over to a grassy wild area near water where it wouldn't easily be able to go back to the dangerous area. I didn't care if I looked like a dork walking around with a big turtle in my arms.

Oh, I will honk at birds or animals that are on a busy interstate (to scare them off) rather than breaking. That is generally on less populous stretches of road. Accidents do happen though, I've just been lucky that I've never had to hit something.