...to that great foxhole in the sky.
Yes, sadly a fox ran out infront of the Discovery this evening whilst I was on my way to Plymouth and didn't cross the road in time. I had no time to react at all. I did swerve to avoid it but it ran in the direction I swerved in, and I will be the first to admit that the Discovery does not handle well in that kind of manovre, so avoiding action was limited. Fortunately there were no cars coming the other way.
At first I thought it was a dog, so I slowed up and turned around. I thought I saw it move in my rear view mirror, so I thought 'should I go and put it out of its misery?' Well when I got back, I could see it was definitely a fox and dead.
Shame really,
Hugo
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A few years ago a bird flew out of a hedgerow and ended it's days on my radiator grill. Nothing I could do so I carried on not realising the thing was still attatched. SWMBO was with me and got quite upset about it, as people who actually know one bird from another tend to. A little while later as I slowed for a roundabout a feather came floating over the windscreen, which got her a bit more emotional. This kept on happening every time I braked, and to my shame I began to find it a bit funny to the extent that I started braking to see if another one would detatch, which it invariably did. In the end I had to stop and knock the thing off in order to avoid domestic meltdown. My joke about fried sparrow for dinner did not go down too well either.
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Intrestingly enough my FiL swares that he will never stop for an animal ever again.
When SWMBO was in Botswana as a child being driven in a VW combi by her dad, a local woman let her dog run out into his path. He braked hard and little SWMBO hit her head on the dash of the car (no seatbelts). So his philosophy is why take the risk of an emergency stop that could go wrong for humans, for an animal.
I do see some sense in that and SWMBO is quite normal - most of the time:)
H
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I had the same situation with a badger last year although I had to go back and finish the job. Not pleasant but better the leaving it in distress.
Badgers are big animals - I was only in a Jazz - surprisingly it didn't do any damage and yet a friend hit a badger in his Nissan and it ripped the front spoiler off!
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Iid go back and hav a look, especially as I thought it had moves, but - no - it was quite dead.
The worst thing was that if I hadn't swerved to avoid it, it may have lived. It came to rest on the other side of the road.
H
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Badgers are big animals - I was only in a Jazz - surprisingly it didn't do any damage and yet a friend hit a badger in his Nissan and it ripped the front spoiler off!
So big and hard they never bother with insurance.
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Sorry to hear about that, Hugo. I've done that myself (a badger on a dark mountain road), and it's pretty upsetting -- I was v shaken afterwards. If it's any consolation, at least it sounds like it was a quick end for the poor animal.
And if you'll forgive me being flippant, just count yourself lucky your aren't a hound, or you'd be in big trouble now ;-)
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A couple of years ago I was on my way home on the motorbike after dusk when a deer ran out of the hedge in front of me.
I was only doing about 50, but didn't have time to react at all, but it scrambled clear about five ot six feet in front of me. It was close enough to hear its hooves scrabbling on the tarmac.
If I'd hit it I know which one of us would have come off worst, and it wouldn't have been the deer!
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Early hours of the morning and I'm driving through the New Forest in a mule Orion with odd Mondeo bits tacked to it. I come round a corner to find a rehearsal for Watership Down taking place, with a dozen or so bunnies just sat in the middle of the road.
::thump::
::bump::
::splat::
::thud::
.....and the enduring image of a bunny flying through the air, illuminated by my brake lights as I glimpsed it in the rear-view mirror.
Still, I was able to report back to the engineers at Ford that the new ABS system wasn't unduly upset by the varying degrees of slipperiness that spilled bunny can produce.
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yup the orion was always a bit of a donkey.
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Two things:
Foxes:
recently the morning after the fox hunting law was forced into law I was walking along Little Clarendon street in the centre of Oxford at 10am. Trotting along the centre of the road was a fox followed by a number of slow moving cars. Many pedestrian witnesses. Taking the mickey I thought!
On avoiding wildlife on the road:
lesson No1 driving in rural Oz, never ever try and avoid wildlife. More people are killed trying to avoid roos, sheep, emu, wombats etc than have ever been killed due to hitting them.
OK a large roo will cause significant damage (bumber, radiator, bonnet, windscreen and roof) but driver panic will send the car straight off the road.
During harveting season, birds gather on the road for the grain. Rounding a curve at 100kmh to meet a flock of cockatoos is not recommended....they cant take off very quickly. Had to remove two bodies from the front grill of the car.
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Driving at night in Tasmania, the road looks like the aftermath of the battle of the Somme. There is so much wildlife running around its impossible not to hit something.
However by the morning, most of it is gone. Natures road sweeper, the tasmanian devil has most of it away.
Echo Stargazer (who most be looking at the southern cross). Given that you are probably driving on a half blacktop at best with gravel sides, and that most aussie cars handle like supermarket trolleys, swerving to avoid a big red will see you scattered in the gum tress in no time at all.
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RF,
Agree about Tassie, but the only devils I saw were dead....hit by cars after scavenging other victims.
Also visiting western NSW, there is a carcass every few yards. The overnight road trains do not stop for anything and have roo bars about 6 feet high facing very slightly downwards so that dead animals are deflected down and sideways.
(5 years under the southern cross based in NSW but driving all over eastern Oz).
Most Aussie cars (Commodores and Falcons) are a little ungainly and do not react very well to putting a wheel off the blacktop onto the gravel at the side of the road. But the Subaru didnt even twitch
the steering wheel.
StarGazer
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Next week's backroom poll.
If you were a fox, would you prefer to be killed outright, instantly, by a pack of foxhounds, or would you prefer a long lingering death from gangrene having been hit by a car.
Oh how our politicians delight in interfering in places where they need not. Of course all, roads need to be 10mph slower than they were last year.
Of course we should be banned from eating bananas that don't have sufficient bending.
[/rant] sorry!
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My ex-husband was a very keen game and rough shooter. On one occasion, the pheasants managed to get their own back on him as one committed suicide by flying straight into a headlight and managing to fuse the entire electric system....
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I remember a girl took avasive action to avoid a squirrel and lots of people ended up dead and injured, this was the excuse in court about 10 years ago, can anyone rememebr?
I would not brake/swerve for a small animal.
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I ran over (much to my dismay and horror) a stoat last night. Its small shiny eyes lit up by the xenons still haunt me. I reversed over it to make sure. I hate it when you kill a rarity like thta.
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I think this thread has gone as far as it needs to...
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Sorry Mark, my fault for starting it. I think it's dead now eh?? :)
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Mark,
Still got a hangover?
sounds like you need a hare of the dog.
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