Mrs. L and I were driving down the backroads, coming home. I was driving about 70 mph. A cat darted in front of me from the ditch on my left—if he’d kept going, he would have made it safely to the ditch on my right.
But he froze, tried to reverse direction. Mrs. L saw him a split second before I did, gasped, and it was all I could do to get on the brakes, but I hit him hard nonetheless.
Maybe I could have veered into a ditch etc. or collided with a car in the next lane but…it was just too fast. And I realized later that under different circumstances the wife and I might be lying in a hospital on life support while the cat lives out its happy life.
The good news is that he must have died instantly. I watched the pavement in my rearview…nothing, nothing. And then the body dropped out of the air onto the shoulder, like the wheel had somehow flung it a dozen feet in the air and it took awhile for the hang time. Long silence in the car. “He didn’t survive that,” I reassured her. “Quick and painless.”
“I felt him through the floorboards,” Mrs. L told me.
StiIl, I feel bad about it. Mrs L took it hard so I don’t want to talk to her about it. I’m just unburdening myself here, I guess. For as much as I have driven, it’s hard to believe how mercifully rare this occurrence has been.
I remember reading Marilyn Vos Savant (super high IQ) in the Sunday magazine (Parade?) responding to a question about what she does when her heart says one thing and her head says another. She said she follows her head, knowing her heart would catch up. I’m nowhere near as smart as her, but this seems to work for me. I think of the head as the older, sadder-but-wiser brother, to the heart.
Awww. Out here we’ve all hit a cute Bambi’s mom or maybe brother or sister.
I hit two deer at once, one time. Nearly died myself.
I’ve personally hit a dog really hard and killed him and many coons, armadillos, and one skunk that was really horrible. And a buzzard that neglected to fly up soon enough. It puked on my windshield. It was not good, trust me.
It’s not a good idea swerving away at that rate of speed.
I thunked a bird one morning on my way to work. You know how they fly up right in front of your car, and they always seem to miraculously avoid you at the very last second?
This happend when I helped someone move. Two birds bolted, one got hit. It was a Quail. They mate for life. I found the male stuck in the grill of the truck, and the next day when we went back for the next load, it’s mate was in the exact spot I collected her husband. It was heart-wrenching.
And delicious. (I didn’t eat road-kill Quail. I shot his wife and roasted her!)
Going back to the year 2000…I owned one car that I drove till it had 100K miles, and the next one had 150K miles. This latest one is at about 60K, plus the camper we owned was 30K. This trip was in Mrs. L’s car, which I usually drive when we go out of town…not sure how many miles I’ve driven that. So I guess the law of averages caught up to me.
We had noticed a deer at the side of the road two or three times on this trip, so it could have been much worse. And I’ve probably hit one thing that few other people can claim—a six foot folding aluminum ladder. A work truck had dropped it, right where the on ramp merges with interstate traffic. Luckily we were in the campervan, which has better clearance than our passenger cars. Five minutes down the road a truck was stopped on the shoulder and the driver appeared to be inventorying what he had.
It’s less safe swerving into other cars, or wrecking your own car at 70mph. I know it doesn’t make it feel any better but you made the best choice possible under impossible circumstances.
I have a friend who will apologize to each silverfish and all its ancestors when she kills them in her house.
Now see, I’m just the opposite from your friend: bugs, spiders, mice, and all of their ilk are not allowed in my house. They have ALL of the Great Outdoors for their nefarious purposes.
If they are found in the house, they die. No apologies, just death.
Mid-daughter ran over a raccoon once. She couldn’t avoid it.
She looked in the rear view and saw 3 baby coon’s run to their dead Mommy-coon. She U-turned to go after them.
Big big mistake. They were clearly able to take their chances in the Arkansas out-back.
They promptly chased her back to her car. Hissing and spitting.
Probably rabid.
Depending on my chosen route for the day, I can end up on some very rural roads. One morning, I was driving through some farm country and saw a chicken poking around next to the side of the road. “Ha ha, cute little chicke–” I thought as it suddenly turned and attacked my Jeep’s front tire. I didn’t dare pull over (farm country around here is often synonymous with meth country), but I felt a surprisingly large thump under that wheel, and I did see a sizable puff of feathers in my rearview mirror.
I felt worse as I kept driving, and by the time I got to work I convinced myself that the poor chicken was lodged somewhere under the Jeep. My manager arrived at work that day to find me under the vehicle looking for chicken parts (there were none – not even a feather).
Oh, I popped a Raccy in my '69 Ford Torino on the way to a Dart Tournament. One of the few times I owned the car for 25 years that I actually drove it. And it was snowing. Bad snow car!
I did that once too. Coming around a corner at night, in the rain, and there were two deer walking across the road, nose to tail. They were flying through the air before it even registered that I’d hit them.
I’ve also hit numerous raccoons, possums, squirrels, and at least one bat. And two more deer. I have a 70 mile commute each day, most of it on back country roads. Animal strikes are just part of the contract. One of my coworkers hit a bear once. The only damage it did was knock off his Smokey the Bear license plate.
In every instance where I’ve hit an animal, had I swerved I would’ve likely rolled my car and done exponentially more damage than I did simply hitting them head-on. Between the near-ubiquitous trees that grow up to the edge of the roads and the ravines we have around here, staying on the pavement with the shiny side up will always be the safest choice.
OP, if it makes you feel any better I rescued two kittens on Sunday that some piece of human excrement abandoned in the parking lot of the grocery store I do my weekly shopping at. Left in a cart in the poring rain, it took about 0.0000001 milliseconds to decide I was going to take them home, where we already have two cats and a dog and certainly don’t need any more furbabies but I’ll be damned if I was going to let them stay there. Had I not picked them up I’m sure they would’ve been hit soon after. They’re now safe in a new home with two kids who are absolutely in love with them.
I hit an owl once - just sitting on the highway. Could hear I hit it, didn’t see anything. 1.5 hours later when I got home, it was in my grill. Found out the feathers are very soft and fluffy.