Conference terri::cars_uk

Tony,

I've tried many types of warning for birds that sit in the road... the most
effective being to flash your lights/leave then on mainbeam.

This seems to work much better than the horn. Try it.



					Lewis.

    Try tying a Goshawk dummy on top of the hood.
    
    Peter

    I've hit so many birds now that the rest of my family call me
    birdkiller. Having said that I don't deliberately kill them. I've done
    some outrageous braking and swerving manoeuvres to miss them and then I
    think my the hell did I do that? It's only a bird and I could've
    stuffed the car into some innocent looking tree!! I suppose it's just
    instinct. My worst incident happened on the M5. I was tootling along
    with both the passenger and driver's side windows open and to this day
    I don't know how it happened but a bird flew in through the passenger
    window and hit the inside of the rear window. There was  blood and guts
    everywhere. It was not a pretty site and the smell was dreadful!!
    
    But how do you stop hitting birds? A high pitch squeal seems to work as
    I've got squaeky brakes and as soon as I touch them birds sitting in
    the middle of the road are gone. Perhaps after I get the brakes fixed I
    'll go along with a speaker fixed to the bonnet of the car churning out
    high pitched squealing noises.
    
    Andy.

It's that time of the year when the young birds are starting to go independent.

Those that learn about cars and roads survive to breed, those that don't die.


It's nature way of ensuring the survival of the fitest.

    You can get little plastic things that emit a high pitched squeal to
    frighten away animals.  Try a motoring shop.  I've not bothered using
    them as I've moved away from a forest full of deer now.
    
    I've only got a stunned sparrow and a parrot to my credit, the parrot
    was spectacular, red green and blue feathers everywhere.  
    
    tp

    On this subject... a wood pidgeon caused in excess of 300 quids worth
    of damage to the bonnet of my old GTE.....
    
    The bullsh*t I got about this was unbelievable!  No-one really believed
    it was a "bird-strike" untill the garage reported that a similar thing
    cost one car owner over 2000 quid... about 400 quid for the dent the
    bird caused, and the remaining 1600 quit to put right the effects of
    the ditch that the driver drove into as he filled his drawers with poo!
    
    Bob (It ain't funny, but it made me feel good!)

    Worst I've seen was trogging up the M3 from Basingstoke to London when
    a duck followed by four ducklings decided to cross the motorway to get
    to the water on the other side... it was total mayhem. They'd made five
    of the six lanes when I managed to avoid them, and only hope they made
    the sixth. What really worried me was that look of total 'I'm going
    this way with my family come what may' look on the duck's face, just
    like a lot of mother/father/kid combinations you see out
    shopping/driving !!!
    
    	Euan

    Sorry, I just rmembered another on bird strikes.. Going back about 10
    years one of the guys in our scooter club (It WAS 10 years ago and I
    WAS very young then !!) got knocked out when a blackbird flew out in
    front of him and hit him on the helmet ! He came round in a hedge about
    10 minutes later, spent two weeks in hospital, six months in plaster
    and an awful long time living it down !
    
    	Euan

re .8

When i'm riding and see a bird i duck down!!! There's no way i'm being knocked
off by a bird.

I know someone who's been knocked off by a car-park barrier... but i wouldn't
like to mention names! ;-)

I saw another example of damage caused by low flying birds recently,
when a partridge loped across the M25 and wafted into the side of
the cavalier in front, removing a wing mirror in a cloud of feathers
and causing the driver to need clean underwear.

Anybody see that "999" programme the other week... an instructor in a
Tornado jet fighter was struck on the head by a bird which smashed
through the canopy, rendering him semi-conscious.  They reckon that
if the occupants of the plane had ejected more than � a second later,
they would have been in the thing when it crashed...

Chris.

    .6�   On this subject... a wood pidgeon caused in excess of 300 quids worth
    .6�    of damage to the bonnet of my old GTE.....
    
    Well a large lump of wood like that certainly could do a lot of damage

    agagagagga...
    
    You really are so funny....
    
    
    
    It obviously ain't happened to you yet... and if it ever does try any
    excuse you like cause they ain't gonna believe you when you tell them
    it were a bird strike!
    
    Bob (the car had been outta the garage approx 5 days after a front end
    rebuild when I actually believed a dozy old git when he indicated to
    turn left into the road I was emerging from...... *BANG*)
    
    

    * Flashing indicator means no more than the lamp is working *
    
    I was driving home early one morning when a barn owl swooped low at me,
    I thought he was coming through the windscreen, but he gained height at
    the last second & cleared the roof.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
     Thats when he hit the roofrack.
    
    Sad but true.
    
    Tony.

     Re .12
    
    
    Bob,
    
       your more a menace then them damn birds. 
    
    Gary

    >>  * Flashing indicator means no more than the lamp is working *
    
    Presumably the lamp is only working half of the time...  :-)
    
    Martin (who has only had Rabbit strikes)

    Gary...
    
    			TRUE!
    
    Martin...
    
    		Don't know.... could be half broke!
    
    

    Weird ! after typing in .7 on Tuesday ....
    
    	Driving to work up the M5 this morning, what do I see near
    Bridgwater ... A Duck and 6 ducklings about to cross the Motorway !!
    I'm jinxed !! This time they were in the hard shoulder about to step in
    front of me, they paused as I went passed, and decided to turn round
    when the lorry behind went past. Hopefully they decided to not try
    again otherwise there's going to be even more carnage on the road.
    
    Euan

    Some three years back I blocked the three lanes on my side of the
    guard rail when two swans had taken the wrong exit and landed on the
    road. I chased them off on foot and that was it. Some two hours later
    however the hold-up it caused still made the traffic info.
    
    It never stops to amaze me how many people drive on when there are
    animals on the road. I ALWAYS stop. Once I stopped to help a kestrel
    sitting on the slow laneof a 4-lane highway. Very early morning, hardly
    any traffic, just this one car in the distance. I wait for it to pass
    only to see it go right over the Kestrel. The bastard didn't even took
    the effort to either slow down or switch lane. It's a good thing I
    wasn't on my bike or I would have gone after him...
    Seen it happen to a run-away(not mine) dog too. In the middle of the
    night on a well lit area. Just this one car, no slowing down no avoiding. 
    And it wasn't a small dog either: a male Airdale. The dog wasn't killed 
    and I had to carry it to the vet to have it put down. I hope that the 
    damage was VERY expensive.  
    Some weeks back I found an injured deer lying at the road side. It had
    been their for several hours in plain sight. The back end was crushed
    and it had been hit on the middle of the road. Hundreds of cars must
    have passed it and surely the driver MUST have noticed. I put it out of
    it's misery.
    Whatever goes on in these people's heads, if anything. I seriously think 
    this sort of behaviour should be probed during driving tests. People with
    this sort of mentality should not be allowed to drive.
                   
    Btw. No amount of ducking helps if you're on a bike doing 80 and a bird,
    also doing, 80 decides to take a collision course. I live VERY near an
    important reserve and one road is on a dike just between the reserve
    and a large lake. Can you imagine: birds travelling high speed from
    the nesting area to the feeding grounds, at about 10 feet, swooping
    over the dike, at about 4 feet? Sure, if you can see them coming you
    evade them but that's just it...you can't.
    Once some heavy waterfowl nearly took my head off and I never saw it
    coming untill the actual impact. 
    
    Deer are an even bigger danger. So much so in fact that, after several
    near misses, I have decided to cut down vehicle speed a lot in dusk or
    dark. I also replace the 55/60 Watt bulb of my vehicles with 90/110's.
    If properly adjusted no blinding will be caused.
    Just a few weeks back on the radio: 
    21.00 hrs news: car hits deer, no injuries (save for the deer), car 
    demolished in ditch.
    22.00 hrs news: police car under way to deer/car accident gets hit by
    deer, no injuries (again save for the deer), car demolished in ditch.
    Both hits happened within sight distance.
    
    Around this time there are also quite a lot of young foxes hit.
    Sometimes I see several on a single morning.
    So apart from the arguments on damage, safety etc. I think it is very
    environmentally sound to slow down A LOT after sunset.
    
    Peter

A couple of years ago some birds, swans or ducks I can't remember, landed on the
M4. A lorry driver stopped his lorry to let the birds fly away. A van loaded
with computer paper didn't stop. The van driver was crushed to death when he ran
into the back of the lorry. I don't know how close the van was to the lorry, or
if the lorry driver did an emergency stop.

A friend rolled his car trying to avoid a cat. He was ok but the car was a write
off.

The only living thing I would stop for, to avoid, on a motor way would be
another person, unless of course the motorway was empty of other trafic.

Simon

    Quite.
    
    No animal is worth risking the life of a human. I don't stop for
    animals, as a rule. I'll avoid if possible, or on a quiet road, shoo
    away, but I will not cause an accident, or willingly/knowingly take
    action that might.
    
    Laurie.

    I tend to agree that stopping on a motorway is probably more dangerous
    than running over the odd bird or rodent (probably depends on the
    circumstances).
    
    My driving instructor told me _never_ to swerve for anything 'cos at
    least if you hit it, you have evidence. Miss it and hit a lamp-post
    instead, the dog/bird/rabbit/armadillo will be a dust speck on the
    horizon and everyone (including your insurance company) won't believe
    you.
    
    On the other hand, was it not Jasper Carrot who said that if you do
    have an accident, calmly get out of the car and say "where the hell did
    that dog I had to brake/swerve for go ?".  After a few minutes, not
    only should you be able to find several witnesses who also saw the dog
    but also someone will probably tell you whose dog it was...
    
    Martin (who hasn't tried this ploy yet BTW)

    Surely it's just instinct to swerve whatever runs out in front of you.
    You cannot tell me your brain has time, especially at 70mph, to
    determine whether your about to collide with a person or an animal and
    thus to decide whether to swerve or not. Also how do you know that
    crashing into a large animal isn't going to cause complete carnage
    anyway. After all hitting a deer at 70mph is likely to cause complete
    loss of control unless you drive something like a range rover.
    
    I agree with Peter a few replies back.
    
    
    Andy.
    
    

    Are there swervers & brakers? I instinctively brake for obstructions
    (bird shaped ones and non-bird shaped ones alike), then I tend to think
    if I'd have swerved I could have avoided giving the chap behind a heart
    attack. 
    
    I once found myself in a situation on an empty dual carriage way one
    night (11pm-ish) sliding towards a hare with that 'I'm not going to
    stop in time' feeling. I did have time to think about why the hare
    wasn't moving, and did the potentially dangerous act of switching of my
    lights. This mobilised the said hare, which haired off up the
    embankment. The lights of my (then) mini were correctly adjusted at the
    MoT the week before, and standard mini lights aren't that good anyway.
    I think any lights hypnotise, not just mal-adjusted ones which dazzle.
    
    I have no time for people running down animals deliberatly, but then
    I'm the sort of person who relocates slugs from my garden path to a
    nice safe flower bed when going out on an evening.
    
    Andy

    Once when a large pigeon landed on my windscreen and bounced off taking
    my windscreen wiper with it, my first instinct was to duck, not to
    swerve or brake!!!
    
    Greg

I drive a landrover. 

If I ever have the fortune to hit a dear it is going straight into the back of
the Landie and down to my butcher friend :-)


I am glad I live in Engand and Peter is in Holland. It is tough luck for the
dumb stupid animal if it wanders/lands onto a motor way. I get the impresion
that Peter is pleased with the fact that the trafic jam he caused was still
being reported a couple of hours later.

Stopping on motorways, unless in an emergency, is, in the UK, illegal. Stopping
all three lanes of a motorway is down right stupid and dangerous. 

Simon

Re: .25

> If I ever have the fortune to hit a dear it is going straight into the back of
> the Landie and down to my butcher friend :-)

The law says that you are not allowed to pick up a game critter if you hit it.
The person following you can, but you are not allowed to.

� The law says that you are not allowed to pick up a game critter if you hit it.
� The person following you can, but you are not allowed to.

I understood it that if it was in the game season and you had the correct game
license and it was on a public highway then you could, with the owners
permission, take the dear for your self.

Other wise what you say is true, sad, but true.

Simon

    
    � The person following you can, but you are not allowed to.
    
    I understood that only authorized people were supposed to pick up run
    over game. This I interpreted to mean policemen and/or VETS. 
    I also think that the last reply
     
    >I understood it that if it was in the game season and you had the
    >correct game license and it was on a public highway then you could,
    >with the owners permission, take the dear for your self.
    
    is also true.(but game means all game, (pheasants, hare, deer, etc)
    
    Chris
     

    Further to the various references regarding hitting deer/deer hitting
    cars:-
    
    The former is something which is potentially avoidable given time and
    assuming attentive driving, in which case it is always sensible to take
    avoiding action (note NOT swerving which is a reactive, dangerous
    manouevre).
    
    However the second case (Deer hitting car) cannot easily be avoided, as
    in the case of a woman driving towards me about this time last year and
    a young deer ran out from a side road, missed the front of my car by a
    couple of feet and promptly demolished this woman's driver's door,
    bounced off and was run over by the vehicle following.
    
    I stopped along with a number of other vehicles, but it was obvious the
    animal was dead. A chap in a large Volvo estate who claimed he was a
    chef (!) removed said deer for his own use. Rather risky I thought as
    it looked quite mangy, but then I guess if you're into game you
    probably don't worry about such things.
    
    The only other time I have seen equivalent damage done to a vehicle was
    by a sheep which completely destroyed the front of a Volvo Artic on
    Snake pass between Manchester and Sheffield many years ago - the sheep
    picked itself up and bounded off across the moors, the truck was
    immobile with its radiator smashed to pulp!
    
    Regards, Bob.
    

    Simon,
    
    Animals have no concept of "traffic" or "right of way" and can
    therefore not be "blamed" if they happen to get on a raod that, in the
    natural concept, has no business being there.
    So if you really want to look at it this way one should probably be
    more respectfull of animals crossing than of people as th�se realy
    should know better.
    
    Have you by the way thought of it that chasing large animals, like a
    pair swans, off the highway might probably be safer than have somebody
    wreck his car and maybe some persons?
    The reasons why I always stop(at the first safe opportunity!) is that
    animals on the road don't only get hurt themselves but that less able
    drivers happen to cause accidents.
    
    This morning, about an hour ago, it was raining hard and I was travelling 
    to work on a two-way country raod. A roe-buck was chasing a hind, not
    watching the road or the traffic and they crossed the road in full gallop.
    If I hadn't brake hard �nd swerved(racing experience does help) I would
    have ended up in a pile, causing a rael accident. As it was now the
    driver behind me got a wake-up and that was it.
    
    Peter

    I've just returned from holiday in New England, and up in the
    mountains of New Hampshire, signs by the side of the road say
    "Brake for Moose - it could save your life".

     Apparently, moose have such long legs that their body is level with
     the windscreen, and if you hit one, the ton or so of body comes
     straight through the windscreen and tends to kill the driver and/or
     front seat passenger. The locals claimed claimed 176 moose accidents
     last year!

     Jay
     

    On Saturday morning, while driving into Damery, I encountered a small
    rabbit sitting in the middle of the road.  I slowed down and stopped
    (there was no other traffic) and waited for it to get out of the way. 
    It didn't move, not even when I ran down the window and yelled, "Get
    out of the way, you stupid rabbit!"  It didn't look injured, but might
    have been a bit gone with myxy.  Eventually I drove around it.
    
    Richard
    

    Rathole danger...
    
    But, yes, moose can be a problem. A couple of years ago, I was talking
    to a trucker in Canada who regularly drove into the frozen north of
    that country, and moose are a major danger there.
    
    Exactly as you described, he mentioned that moose have long legs, and
    therefore when you hit one all you do is take out its legs. This
    trucker had hit a moose, which then came over the truck bonnet and
    joined him in his cab: dead! This guy was pinned down in his cab by
    1600 lbs of ex-moose for half a day, before he was found!!! (it being
    rather a remote part of Canada he was in).
    
    
    Stephen
                                     

	Oh goody, another rabbit saved so I can shoot it.


	Heather

    You'd get on well with my father-in-law.
    
    My wife was leaning out the other window yelling, "Mint sauce, mint
    sauce!" but that only really works with sheep (and sometimes not even
    then).
    
    Richard
    

    If it had myxy it would have been kinder to flatten it.
    
    Laurie.

    Not just moose! Modern cars with their low profile front tend to
    "scoop-up" anything higher than 15" or so. If you're travelling about
    50 mph. even a medium sized dog may very well land on the back seat and
    a roe-deer will "behead" the driver. 
    A fair sized beetle will shatter the windscreen or the visor of a
    biker doing 100 mph if met head-on.
    Have you never experienced the damage a hard berry blown from an electricity
    tube can do when you were a brat? Imagine what somthing a whole lot
    heavier will do at a much higher impact speed: most drivers falsely feel 
    secure in their metal boxes. 
    Just ask the Israeli air-force. 
    
    Over here killing a deer (or any other protected- or game animal) 
    without a license is considered poaching. A car is also not a legal 
    hunting means and furthermore you will surely be "hunting" without 
    the land-owners' permission. To put insult upon injury you might 
    even be outside of the season.
    So in order to avoid rather serious criminal charges you'd better
    report a road-accident.
    If you are so unlucky to hit anything you should report this to the
    police immediately and only with their permission bring the victim to 
    the Police station. Taking it home or even picking it up unauthorised 
    is an offence!
    P.e. hitting a hawk and taking it to have it stuffed may present you with a
    nasty surprise too. The taxidermist is obliged to report any raptor
    coming in and since their will be no seal or lead-tag on it you'll be
    prosecuted for violating the CITES treaty. Since they have the proof in
    their hands and you'll be defenseless, you face a VERY HEFTY fine and
    even a jail sentence.
    
    Moral: watch it and slow down!
    
    Peter                                 

All you naturists out there.  I apologise but I thought it funny...

During the Scottish Rally a few weeks ago I was tailing (ha ha) my pal on
some remote road (it said "remote road" on the sign anyway) and a small bird 
(about finch / robin size) flew into the front of his car (radiator grill).  If 
I remember it rightly, the bird looked to be DOI and *flew* straight over his 
and my own car roof. 
As there was a bit of a mess on his windscreen, he used his wash-wipe, and all I 
could see was a few feathers flying from the wipers.

I thought it looked quite funny in a "sick" sort of way.


Once again apologies if anyone found that offensive, but it did happen.



Warren 

    Myxy only occurred to me after we'd gone past.  Perhaps the rabbit
    wanted to end it all...
    
    There's no way I could cold-bloodedly put the 165/70 to a bunny-rabbit
    in the middle of the road like that, kinder or not.  Maybe I'm just a
    wimp.
    
    Richard
     

    I agree with .39 
    
    Several people died on the M4 recently when a Van swerved to avoid a
    swan. It was at the start of the morning rush-hour & a multiple pile-up
    occurred. I'm sure many families are asking why.
    
    Given the same cicumstances, I felt sad when I  ran over a pheasant.
    
    Passing the Wellington Estate in rush-hour, 3 pheasants started across
    the road. I hit the middle one, amid an explosion of feathers. As this
    road is too dangerous to stop on, I continued for 100 M till I could
    park safely, but the bird had been bagged before I could leave my car.
    :^)
    
    Tony.

I've just returned from the Auvergne on the bike. I was witness to an awful
pile up between a Merc 500SEL and one of the SALERS breed of cattle. They have
horns and one of them went in through the side of the merc. The POMPIERS
arrived and extracted the occupants of the merc unhurt luckily but the car was a
rightoff. I was the only person around with a camera. I recorded the whole
incident for the driver. He was German and said that the insurance co would
never believe his claim. The Cow dies in the accident.

A few years ago I hit a pheasant in my GTE. I got it repaired and 1 day later
another suicidal bird flew into the car with simlar results.!

So far this year I have hit a sheep and one squirrel on the bike. I was lucky
that the impact with the sheep was only a glancing blow but is bent the cast
footrest through 90 deg and gave me a bruised leg which made starting an
awful pain. No electric feet on 650 Triumphs!.

Birds are a real pest. Last year a fully grown Crow flew into me. It smashed the
fairing screen and then rebounded into me. I had a sore head for 2 days
afterwards.

Re a note earlier about deer & Land Rovers. I saw the results of such an impact
15 years ago. IT was not a pretty sight (the rover I mean) over  �800.00 worth
of damage then.

/S

    Where do you get pheasants repaired ?
    
    
    "A few years ago I hit a pheasant in my GTE. I got it repaired and 1 day
    later another suicidal bird flew into the car with simlar results.!"
    
    
    [EOB]

    I could tell you where to get them plucked...
    
    Richard
    

	It's actually much quicker if you skin them

	Heather

    Pheasant is tastier plucked - I find.

    
    After a good hanging!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Andy.

    Talk about birds....
    
    Yesterday on the return to home there was a panicky situation on a
    4-lane bridge.
    A woman had "parked" her Golf there with the hazard lights on. To my
    amazement she was still sitting in it while cars swerved and dashed
    about ("YOU STUPID WO....").
    I stopped a few hundred yards over the bridge (remember I was the guy
    stopping for birds...) and ran back. I put the car in neutral, gave it
    a shove and it rolled down the ramp! That was it. I asked the woman if
    she needed a lift to get help and as she sheepishly (another animal) 
    grinned she didn't, I ordered her out of the car behind the barrier and 
    travelled home amazed.
    
    Peter
                                

	Peter (male human animal), by sheep do you mean "non-human animal slave"?
	As for bird (do you mean "womyn"?), I think that the thought police "organs of
	the fascist state" will soon be around to your cube for your thinking to be 
	"morally re-aligned"

	Dave (hirsuitly challenged)

Some of you may know this one, some may not...

It's a good party piece, especially when you have been drinking copious
amounts of alcohol ! 


I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son.  I'm only plucking
pheasants 'til the pheasant plucker comes.


Quite amusing rhyme.


Warren

    Everybody knows that one, my remark was by way of a reference to it...
    
    There's actually a pub called the Pheasant Plucker somewhere out in the
    direction of Jealott's Hill.
    
    Richard
    

 At Mallory Park theres a lake in the centre of the circuit
At one wet race meeting a duck decides to walk across 
the tarmac in the middle of the race... in front of me
it bent the front spoiler and and left blood and
feathers all over the chassis. Swerve to avoid? I was 
trying hard just to stay the black stuff.


				Derek

    Driving on an A road in S Wales yesterday a sparrow had a bit of an
    arguament with my bumper the bird then bounced off my bonnet
    onto my windscreen and into the car via the sunroof needless to say the
    guy sitting in the passenger seat got a bit of a shock (as well as
    getting covered in blood & guts).
    
    Trev

    ANother story from South Wales.....someone driving down the road when a
    cow walks out in front of car.The subsequent collision wrote off the
    car.
    
    The cow looked a bit stunned,shook its head a few times a wandered off
    into the sunset.Probably had a bit of a headache later!

    A couple of years or so ago, I was driving to work when I saw a
    collison (that's the only way to describe what happened) between a
    Volvo 440 and a Rottweiller (is that how you spell it?).
    
    This happened about 200 yards down the road from my house. The car that
    hit the dog (I can spell that!) was about 10 feet in front of me,
    travelling in the opposite direction.
    
    I stopped. The driver of the other car stopped. The dog stopped.
    
    I refused to get out, as did the other driver. The dog looked rather
    dis-chuffed. It got up and wandered around in circles for about 30
    seconds before it keeled over and died.
    
    The Volvo looked more of a mess than the dog. Even after it died, we
    both stayed in our cars. Call us cowards, but we were not gonna mess
    with an unhappy Rottweiller if we could help it!
    
    As it happened, the owner came out to drag the dog away (and - as the
    saying goes, he resembled the dog!).
    
    Because the animal was so big, and because it got up and walked -
    albiet in shock, and only for a short time - it was quite shocking to
    see.
    
    Andy

    In case you'd forgotten the law.....its illegal to stop on the motorway
    unless in an emergency.
    
    Would you class meeting up with Bambi,Donald Duck,Muffin the Mule or
    Mr.Ed in the fast lane of the motorway an emergency?

    
    
    
        Would you class meeting up with Bambi,Donald Duck,Muffin the Mule
    or
        Mr.Ed in the fast lane of the motorway an emergency?....
    
    
    .....only if they were trying to overtake.... :-)
    
    Alan.
    

    Muffin the mule, not sure, but...
    
    About 12 years ago I was driving home from London down the M4 in the
    early hours of the morning when I saw a white "shape" in my headlights.
    This "shape" was about 200 yards away in the fast lane, no lights on it
    and was moving slowly in my direction. Apart from the two of "us" the
    motorway was empty.
                         
    I decided to slow down to about 30mph and when my headlights fully lit
    up the shape it turned out to be a WHITE HORSE (not sure what name it
    was called by).
    
    I drove quietly passed this horse pinching myself. Now is this real or
    what (No Jeremy Beadly in those days!). After about another 200 yards
    I saw about 10 cars on the hard shoulder by an emergency telephone. Their
    owners alerting the police ("Oh yes Sir, A white horse you say..., on the
    motorway..., going the wrong direction.., no lights"). I decided to drive
    on, much to my shame!
    
    I never knew if I had passed the black horse which may have been with
    him!
    
    - Trefor
        

Last Wednesday Evening about 21:15. Outside lane of the A329(M) overtaking cars
doing abou 65/70 MPH. I notice a small dark shape in my lane. My first  thought
is that it is a black bin liner. I start to slow down, can't slow down too much
as there are cars behind me and on the inside lane. I get to within recognition
distance and I realise that it is in fact a canadian goose. It is also too late
to do anything and far too dangerous to stop. Splat... I hit this poor wretch.
As I look in my rear view mirror I can see an explosion of feathers etc straight
over the car behind.

Simon

    Regarding a much earlier note, yes rabbits do get transfixed by main
    beams don't they?
    
    I was driving down a country road at around midnight, all is quiet, no
    traffic, and there's this bloody rabbit sitting on the right
    carriageway. I slow down about 10 mph to see what it's going to do.
    Just stay there, Mr. Rabbit and you'll be fine. Rabbit sits still.
    
    Fine. I start to accelerate again.
    
    "Ooo", says Mr.Rabbit, "I car. I fancy taking him on, he looks a
    complete woosey, I bet I can knock him out". and walks straight onto my
    side of the road.
    
    Having no sympathy for the dumb animal, I stomp on the loud pedal and
    line up a 185/60 straight onto his bonce. I figure it's better than
    trying to go over him, the ground clearance my car has got would
    probably have scooped him into my radiator fan (hyukk there's a
    thought).
    
    Needless to say, he lost.
    
    The next day, driving back, I ran over his carcass again just for good
    measure. Stupid thing.
    
    Dan.
    

	One of my uncles used to try and hit them with the
	sump of his bull-nosed Rover (P4?), that way he could
	eat them later.  He sometimes had to chase them across
	the fields though,

	Dave

Back in my rallying days we had fun with the trailer.  Going through northern 
Pennsylvania, returning from an event we saw a large number of road kill.  A 
few cars had queued up behind us since the roads were hilly.  The tires on the 
trailer stick out about 1 foot on either side of the van so I would gently 
swerve back and forth (within limits) and line up the roadkill with the 
trailer tires.  Kept me and my passengers amused and made the cars following 
me back off.

Anything under the size of a dog is toast if it jumps out in front of me.  
It's not worth the risk of a sudden swerve to avoid it.

Dave

re.61:

>It's not worth the risk of a sudden swerve to avoid it.

But it's ok to swerve to hit it?!

Dave.

    I remember my dad hit a dog in Spain square on, he was braking from
    40mph when he hit it so what the actual collision speed was I don't
    know, but it wasn't slow.
    
    After stopping abruptly, he got out to check the car and animal (in
    that order). The car's front wasn't exactly totalled - but a dented
    mess. This scruffy old Spanish mutt that had been roaming around the
    local bins got up, took a shifty look at dad as if to say "what are you
    looking at?" and strolled off, albeit with a limp.
    
    Little bugger, eh?
    
    Dan.
     

    
    There I was, driving along, when this elephant jumps out.  Car was a
    total mess.
    
    Ian

>>It's not worth the risk of a sudden swerve to avoid it.

>But it's ok to swerve to hit it?!

Well, yes!  With the trailer I was aiming for them (and the targets we're 
moving since they were already dead), only when oncoming traffic allowed for 
it.  Blindly jumping on the brakes or swerving into the other lane to avoid 
Fluffy is not my style.

Dave

    >> ...(and the targets we're moving since they were already dead)...
    
	Ey?!
    
    Dan.

    I am reminded of a story told me by a DECcie I worked with in L.A.
    about his brother in law. This chap's wife came from Arkansas, and on
    his first visit to meet her family, they had venison for dinner, and
    during the meal his wife's brother recounted the sourcing of the meat.
    Apparently he was driving home from work one night when this deer
    leaped out in to the road ahead of him. After swerving several times,
    he managed to knock it down. He then reversed back, and with some help
    from a passing motorist, he loaded the body into the back of his truck.
    After about 10 miles, he looked in his rear view mirror, and in the
    light of some oncoming headlights, he saw two eyes staring at him from
    the back of his truck. At this point, the deer starting kicking s**t
    out of the back of his truck, which had a fibreglass truck top.
    He quickly pulled off the road into a supermarket car park, pulled up
    outside the front door and ran inside to buy a hunting knife. All this
    time the deer was still kicking around in the back of his truck. Once
    back outside with the knife, he pushed through the crowd of shoppers,
    opened up the back of the truck, wrestled the deer to the floor and
    slit its throat in the shop doorway.
    At this point, my friend was beginning to go off his meal, and was
    completely finished when his father in law said "Good job you acted so
    quick" and the brother in law said "Yep, would have ruined the meat"...
    
    Rob

    Now THAT is a story'n'half!
    
    What a mess - all that blood.
    
    Makes you shudder dunnit.
    
    Dan.
    

>    >> ...(and the targets we're moving since they were already dead)...
                            ^^^^^
                should have been "weren't"
> 
>        Ey?!


 
Sorry for any confusion.  The 'targets' I was hitting with the trailer tires
were previously killed and flatened so it was fairly easy to line up the van
so the trailer tires would run them over......

Dave

    re .64
    
    >There I was, driving along, when this elephant jumps out.  Car was a
    >total mess.
    >
    >Ian
    
    In rural Yorkshire the problem is horse droppings but the effect is
    much the same.
    
    Andrew
     

    ... unless you're in a soft-top...