Just started a new contract in Swansea, which necessitates a commute along the A465 'Heads of the Valleys' from my parent's place near Abergavenny.
Anyway, on the way home I turn off the A465 over the mountain at Ebbw Vale towards Crickhowell.
I hit a sheep on the way home today. At 55mph it walked under my nearside front tyre, denting and twisting the lower part of my Passat's bumper. These sheep roam the mountain, and nothing keeps them from wandering onto the road.
Can I hold the livestock owner responsible for the damager? If so, how do I find out who they are?
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Very rapid walkers these Welsh sheep. Best avoided, Have some nasty habits.
Happy Motoring in Wales. Hard to admire the view at 55mph sheep or car.
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Your probably more likely to find him pursuing you for the value of the sheep
open country + uncontrolled livestock = a risk you have to assess - why hold somebody else responsible ?
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Put a pair of black wellingtons on the bonnet, I've he(a)rd that that scares them off!
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I have to agree with borasport20 here Graham F1.
I think you are trying to hold someone else responsible for your own lack of anticipation and awareness that one of hundreds of free ranging sheep might just jump out in front of you on an unfenced road.
If I was the farmer I would be after you with a claim.
Still - add a few Jersey Royals with melted butter, peas and some mint jelly and why worry about a few bumps on the car.....
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"Can I hold the livestock owner responsible for the damager"
Where it is common land or moor and the road is unfenced then No - its your responsability not to hit the sheep.
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When's the barbie? ;o)
Oz (as was)
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Seeing as though you are from the local area - perhaps you should know better as to what potential 'dangers' you might encounter whilst navigating your way through the hills. With the others on this, I'd keep a low profile and hope the Owner of the Sheep doesn't come looking to be re-imbursed by you. BTW did you report the matter to the Police, since IIRC then a collision with a sheep (amongst other animals) needs to be reported by law...
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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& there must be a chance that the police would go after you for driving without due car, or some such.
Fortunately the sheep isn't worth much. Maybe £50 for a ewe, absolute tops.
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Just think yourself lucky you don't get done for, wait for it,
Driving without ewe care and attention....
/gets coat
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Apparently if you really want to worry a sheep you should creep up behind it and tell it there isn't a God!
Eddie Izzard c. 1999.
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Sorry to hear of your misfortune Graham.
I've hit a couple of sheep in the last few years. It's just part of life living in the Scottish Highlands. But the ones around here don't walk into my path - they run. They tend to see me coming (usually at at about 60 mph) and decide they want to be on the other side of the road, and charge, inevitably timing it to perfection . . . .
I just contact the shepherd / owner, or, if not known, the police, and then go to the garage to get an estimate.
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Thanks for all the replies. The predictable (but still amusing) smattering of jokes, some understandable remarks about lack of anticipation (I'll come to this later), some confirmation of the facts and one piece of genuine empathy from tyro (am I really in the back room?!)
As regards anticipation, said sheep walked out from behind a roadside shrub. I was unaware of it's proximity, let alone it's intention to cross the road, until I was some ten yards from it. Relating to tyro's point about them running - I agree on this, I've seen it happen a lot in this area. Usually they run across thinking they can make it, but as this one walked out from behind a shrub I think it was as unaware of my prescence as I was of it.
You can talk to the cows (or sheep) come home about anticipating hazards, but no-one would have avoided this. Perhaps you might have if you drove the whole road at 20mph, but who's going to do that?
I was fairly certain I couldn't claim against the owner (reality of living in the area, heard many tales of it happening), but wanted to be sure. Do uncontrolled livestock actually have a right to occupy the road?
I'm aware the police should be informed (injury to horse, dog, cow, sheep, ass, etc.) but no-one saw it happen and I couldn't really care less - the sheep are a menace.
Thankfully it's just a bit of twisting to the bottom of the bumper. I was worried initially about the intercooler, as that resides behind that nearside front corner, just in front of the wheel.
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the sheep are a menace.
Never mind the fact that its someone's livelyhood and that they roamed the hills since time in memorial.
Anyway following an EU (ewe) edict they will have to be made easily identifiable and weill be baacoded from April 2006.
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I'm aware of that.
But we live in a different world now. People zoom from place to place working in service industries, that's what this country runs on now - unfortunately. There's no living to be made keeping sheep on bleak hills, not without huge subsidies.
There wouldn't have been much of a barcode left to read on the one I hit. There was a thump as it went under, and I saw nothing but a spray of red mist in the rear view mirror.
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Never mind the fact that its someone's livelyhood and that they roamed the hills since time in memorial.
Pedant mode on:
It's "liveliehood" and "since time immemorial."
:)
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True pedant mode on - "livelihood" is the correct spelling.
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Anyway following an EU (ewe) edict they will have to be made easily identifiable and weill be baacoded from April 2006.
I'm sure that would be a cause of great lambentation.
Anyway, if you keep up these puns I'll set my mutt on you
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"Do uncontrolled livestock actually have a right to occupy the road"
In those areas, yes fraid so. Dont worry tho, wont be long before they put Sheep Cameras up there.
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Thankfully it's just a bit of twisting to the bottom of the bumper.
If you get it repaired, watch they don't try fleecing you.
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-Fortunately the sheep isn't worth much. Maybe £50 for a ewe, absolute tops.
Sounds like a baa-gain to me.
Can´t believe I´ve even bothered putting that up.
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A long time ago, my father was driving along a road in south wales (well we lived there) and a sheep jumped off the higher ground onto his car and killed itself. Farmer tried getting money for the dead animal out of my father!
Before I was born so over 34+ years ago now but there's something about those Welsh sheep.
...down the Gower Peninsular, there's a nice beach area called Rossili... now why do those sheep throw themselves off the cliff.... what were they avoiding ???
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Welsh sheep playing chicken. Whatever next.
[PM]. What's this liveliehood word then? [/PM]
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Sheep on the road are a common problem round here, and they regularly used to get hit by vehicles. Then the council came up with a novel idea of issuing all local drivers with a horn that sounds like a zip-fastener, and the sheep / vehicle accidents stopped overnight.
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To get sheep to move out of your way, don't bother using your horn - they won't pay any attention. Rev the engine instead.
If you are on foot, clap your hands.
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Only one thing will move sheep. The sound of a carving knife being sharpened on a steel.
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The words "mint sauce" work for me.
All my dad's fault: at a very young age, he told me that shouting "horseradish sauce" would frighten a bull away. It was the best part of 20 years before I caught on.....
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Deer are worse than sheep: long antlers and a habit of jumping mean you may get one in your windscreen...
Sheep are a hazard on the Buxton to Leek road and many Peak District roads as well - they are highly intelligent and run in front of cars..:-(
madf
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The danger from sheep is not what it once was.
When I was small I used to be taken, bored, to the less remote parts of the Scottish Highlands in a Humber 16/50 with hydraulic brakes. Not infrequently I was aroused, or even dumped on the floor, by a brake application occasioned by presence upon the road, or irruption thereon, of sheep which did not distinguish between the road and any other part of the countryside.
Later, after the war, the sheep tended to tread out paths upon the road verges to which they largely confined themselves except when making a break straight across. I probably would not have survived motor cycling with pre-war sheep.
This would appear to be a manifestation of natural selection over a relatively small number of generations.
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Um, did you actually stop to see if you'd managed to kill the sheep, or just leave it to suffer? Saying you don't care about the sheep and it shouldn't have run in the road is a bit off, imo.
I mean, a deer is quick, rabbits are quick, pheasants just have death wishes... but I'm finding it hard to believe there wasn't some way of avoiding a hulking great sheep, and then not even stopping to see what you'd done.
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Bearing in mind he hit it on Tuesday, and it´s been sitting by the road since then, I´s say it was a bit off by now. Probably minging, in fact.
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Maybe you could try one of those ultra-sonic deer whistles.
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Or tell hum you're a Kiwi and thus tum you'll let hum off, but nixt tum he could be a lamb pattie for your brekkie.
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Maybe you could try one of those ultra-sonic deer whistles.
I can tell you, through sad experience, that they don't work with sheep.
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"bit off by now. Probably minging, in fact."
Nop-e I was up there on tuesday night, its in my freezer.
Lamb curry anyone?
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Yeah, as long as my portion doesn´t have any tyre tracks in the meat!
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Think yourself lucky you were just Rammed by a sheep.
An ex colleague of mine was set upon by a cow when he was driving to work in Devon. Apparently he came around a corner and was faced with three cows standing shoulder to shoulder.
The left one went left, the right one went right and the one in the middle - straight onto his bonnet!
The cow got up and walked away. The car fared worse!
H
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Pologirl:
It went under the front wheel and I saw the mess in my rear-view mirror. There was quite simply no way it survived.
As I said before, it came out from behind a roadside shrub. There was simply nothing to be done - unfortunate but reality.
Far to late to brake to a standstill (unless some cars can stop from 50mph in ten yards?) and I wasn't going to swerve - I'll tell you why. I don't know if anyone on this forum knows the road, but it happened coming down the hill on the Crickhowell side. It's a moderately steep but open downhill stretch, and on the left-hand side (as you're coming downhill) there is a steep drop off the edge of the mountain with no barrier - losing control of the car on such a road isn't something anyone would even want to think about, so I wasn't going to swerve.
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There's been some discussion about punctuation on the 'I hve a question' thread. This one reminds me of the dangers of no punctuation at all:
Notice in a Devon field: "Sheep Worrying Dogs Will Be Shot"...
There's also the subtle "Slow Children Crossing" - they are still learning that there are only two types of pedestrian - the quick and the dead.
I'm sure we must have had a thread on silly road signs: perhaps a moderator with a long memory, or one cleverer with the search engine than I am, can find it. If not we can start one, and open a rich vein no doubt.
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There was a thread........ I recall contributing 'Slow Plant Crossing'...........
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That money talks I cannot deny
I so often hear it say goodbye
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...and my two favorites of all time from my Gulf days:
A sign in the middle of the Sharjah desert: "Do Not Take Sand From Here".
And another in Muttrah Oman: "Danger Men Working Slowly".
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