Bloody wildlife...

Soldato
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13 Apr 2013
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La France
You think hitting pheasants isn’t fun in a car? Trying having one fly into you on a motorcycle.

Smashed the headlight and instruments before hitting my right shoulder. I wobbled to a halt, wiped the bits of pheasant I could see off me before walking back to village I just rode through to find a payphone.

Very, very lucky. Lost a school friend when he hit a deer on a bike many years ago.
 
Soldato
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Cornwall
Tbh I couldn’t give a **** about your car. An innocent animal dying in such a manner is far more important to me.

Really jars me when someone wipes out an animal and worries more about their wallet and precious car than the life they’ve taken.

Pretty much summed it up. Human race eh. We act like it's our place and our priority to be here.

I know id be devastated, and not over the ****ing car...
 
Associate
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11 Jul 2011
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754
As a kid travelling with my mom late at night through country roads heading home she hit something. Got out to find it was a cat it still haunts me to this day how distraught she was! Safe to say that i've grown up fond of animals. I wouldn't be ****** about the car personally but horses for courses right. I'd hate to hit any animal. Don't mind splatting insects though especially wasps they are evil little plebs.
 
Soldato
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2 Aug 2012
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7,809
What I have always found interesting is how different animals react to traffic so differently.

As stated.

Pheasant, Pigeons, ETC. Panic mode-fly up into windscreen/whatever-Thump!

Deer/Fox/badgers/etc Randomly bound/run into the road-Thump!

By contrast

Crows-Sit pecking at the dead Pigeons/pheasant/Deer/etc right up until you are only a couple of yards away. they then look at you and disdainfully make a couple of hops to the side of the road (Or to just over the white line-They seem to know that drivers wont go there) and watch as the wheels thunder by only inches from them.

Rabbits, Much the same. (Apart from the eating other roadkill thing) I once saw a group of rabbits running towards the road as I was approaching them and I thought "Oh No" However, they got to the edge of the grass and stopped, watched me drive past and then in the RVM I saw them cross the road safely.

Everybody knows that Crows etc are smart as ****. But I think people underestimate Rabbits. I think they are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.

watership-down-car-o.gif
 
Soldato
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In the middle
Poor badger :(
I hit a cat once, stopped and took it to a local vet but it was too late. As an animal lover I was really upset for days. Couldn't give a **** about the car.
 

Ev0

Ev0

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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14,152
Wife hit a badger one evening, only doing 15-20 mph but made a hell of a noise as it hit the bumper. Cracked it and some of the undertray trim, so not too expensive but still a couple of hundred to fix.

Luckily the badger seemed to just be a little stunned, got up and ran off (and hopefully was ok)
 
Soldato
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Not where I'd like to be
Wife hit a badger one evening, only doing 15-20 mph but made a hell of a noise as it hit the bumper. Cracked it and some of the undertray trim, so not too expensive but still a couple of hundred to fix.

Luckily the badger seemed to just be a little stunned, got up and ran off (and hopefully was ok)

It probably got home to it’s family and died in front of them.
 
Man of Honour
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Having just moved out into the countryside and doing a lot of late evening/night commuting it is something I'm not looking forward to :|
 
Soldato
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I once saw two deer on the lane to my parents place, stopped to let them run off and they both decided to run at my car and jump on it. I was due to sell it the next day and had to knock £50 off. :/
 
Caporegime
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In acme's chair.
Badgers are made of bricks. I hit one in my Polo and cracked the bumper, lower grille came flying out and shot down the road etc... No sign of the badger though so he must have walked off... Amazing really. But I bet he wasn't in a good way! Poor guy.
 
Soldato
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Bristol
I hit a squirrel which bounded onto the motorway I was joining, he saw me coming turned round to run back but I had traffic in front and to my right so ended up hitting it. What makes things worse is he knew it was game over because he let out a massive squeak as I was about to hit him and in the rear view I saw him take a few steps onto the hard shoulder and collapse :(

Also hit a bat which I only notice when closing the garage door and there her was, spreadeagled on the front grille. Buried him in the garden.

Also hit a cyclist while pulling away from a mini roundabout, he had a cut elbow and bruised hip, I had a scratched bumper and paid £110 to the bikeshop for mending his bike.
I think cyclists are one of the biggest hazards on the road because at least wild animals (save maybe pheasants) have a sense of self-preservation, whereas many cyclists are just plain stupid. Driving back from Minehead today and saw several pairs and not one of them did a quick over-the-shoulder check when moving out to overtake parked vehicles.
 
Associate
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I’ve never hit anything luckily enough but I’ve been hit by a bird before. Driving home in the dark and it flew straight into my windscreen pretty much where my face was! Massive thud nearly went into the ditch. Stopped and couldn’t see it so must have flew off
 
Man of Honour
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Surrey
Poor badger. I guess the warm weather has started mating season a bit early so they are probably more active at the moment :(

I hope it died instantly rather than lay there in pain at the roadside for hours first :( :(
 
Soldato
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Cumbria
Pretty much summed it up. Human race eh. We act like it's our place and our priority to be here.

I know id be devastated, and not over the ****ing car...

I think many people do care but if you hit an animal and it’s most certainly dead then what should the op do? Not bother about his car? Start a badger sanctuary?
 
Soldato
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Cumbria
I’ve never hit anything luckily enough but I’ve been hit by a bird before. Driving home in the dark and it flew straight into my windscreen pretty much where my face was! Massive thud nearly went into the ditch. Stopped and couldn’t see it so must have flew off

I hit 3 different birds in the space of 10 minutes a year or so ago, it was a frosty morning and I can only guess that the grit on the road looked like food as there was lots of dead birds on the road that morning
 
Soldato
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21 Oct 2011
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ST4
You haven't lived until you've had a pair of pheasants hit your windscreen at ~70. Well, I say pair but only the first one was a full on hit on the windscreen, the second one hit the windscreen pillar. Properly dented it too.
 
Man of Honour
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13 Oct 2006
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90,820
First near miss tonight - similar kind of circumstances leaving a 40 into NSL and as I was accelerating huge deer jumped out of the hedge right in my path and then froze in the headlights - I'd had someone on my tail through the 40 who I thought was going to overtake me once we hit the open road so I didn't push on as fast as I normally would but I still wouldn't have been able to stop in time to avoid hitting it - fortunately the other vehicle didn't overtake despite starting to move over and the deer then moved over just enough I could get past it on the left.

In the spur of the moment couldn't decide whether to give it the horn or not as I think it would have caused further confusion and more likely to move more into my path.

Seen half a dozen foxes and a couple of smaller deer since the last time I posted but all were more cautious and at a good distance the only badgers I've seen have been pancaked on the road (quite a few big tankers come through here at night).
 
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