Death by armadillo

[carnivorousplant]

@KlondikeGeoff

Maybe our illegal-immigration laws?

Do you have a lot of crew cab pickups in Arizona?

[levdrakon]

Without googling up a cite to prove it, I still feel confidant stating that someone, somewhere in Texas has of course managed to die by armadillo. Had to.

[Wheelz]

@Dung_Beetle

Next time I see an armadillo in the yard, I’m going to jump at it and say “Boo!”

Of course, if it jumps four feet in the air, I’m going to crap myself.

Be sure to get video.

[Dung_Beetle]

@levdrakon

Without googling up a cite to prove it, I still feel confidant stating that someone, somewhere in Texas has of course managed to die by armadillo. Had to.

Yup.

armadillo's don't kill..people using armadillo's do...

[Roderick_Femm]

@dolphinboy

I have no idea how common this kind of accident is, but it seems to me the timing would have to be perfect for it to happen.

I have seen them scurry away and not get hit by a car, so presumably they would ‘feel’ or ‘hear’ the vehicle approach and try to take evasive action as opposed to being completely startled.

If they did jump straight up and you were going 70 mph and they landed on your windshield they might just bounce right off, as opposed to crashing through through the glass and onto the dashboard.

Someone from the Southwest needs to run some experiments and let us know what happens.

Mythbusters once did a segment on a full soda can thrown at high speed (as if from another car) against a windshield, to see if it could go through and injure the occupants. If my memory serves, they had to shoot it at a much higher speed than 70 mph to even crack the windshield. The tendency, apparently due to the shape and strength of the windshield, is for the object to bounce over onto the top of the car.

I realize a soda can is smaller than an armadillo, but it is also more dense (an assumption on my part) and probably also has more structural integrity. The bear story is another matter, I assume that is a matter of sheer mass vs the strength of the windshield, for an object as big as a 300-lb bear, the shape of the glass probably didn’t matter much.
Roddy