Attention Small Animals: Please stop trying to commit suicide in front of my car.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

It looks like you are waging a coordinated effort to kill yourselves under my wheels. Two squirrels, a rabbit, a chipmunk, and a ground hog are just a bit much for one 20 mile commute to work.

It was early, and you should be amazed my reflexes were that good.

[peekaloo]

1. private contractors

for brake replacement/ auto body shops.

sneaky.

[sammythecat]

2. Might have to wait another thousand years or so for that.

They never had a chance to get ready for millions of 3,000lb things going 60mph. Haven't figured 'em out yet.

Deer are a real hazard around here. I've hit 2 so far.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. The deer are totally tame around here

I hit one once.

I just hope I don't ever hit a bear. We have a lot of those.

[kentauros]

7. Sometimes evolution works fairly fast.

You'd think that since there are more squirrels hit and subsequently procreating more than deer (at least in cities, anyway) that the instinct would have changed by now. I do see cats and sometimes dogs stop and wait, though...

[sammythecat]

8. You're right on that. I was speaking off the cuff

At first I wrote 10,000yrs. I should have whittled it down to a hundred or so.

[kentauros]

16. Yet, the squirrels still haven't learned

while the domesticated animals have ;)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

9. Yep, my cat always stops & looks

[sammythecat]

10. I have 2 like that.

They sometimes lounge on the warm pavement at night, but as soon as the hear the sound of a motor they scurry right off the road. They know something dangerous is coming and the road is where it travels. That's really good to see. It's one thing I don't have to be too concerned about with those two.

[marzipanni]

4. In early spring it's " PEEEEE-YOOOOO!!!" when driving on the rural roads

Nocturnal beasties, skunks saunter across in the dark (looking for a mate?) and many don't make it.

[Kali]

29. they may be looking for a previous victim

skunks are pretty omnivorous

[DarkTirade]

5. I was driving down the highway a couple months ago when I saw a flash of motion and suddenly...

*THUMP* *WHOOSH OF FEATHERS*

A bird flew right under my tire. :wow:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

6. Yeah, I once had a friggin Cardinal in the grill of my Cherokee

[TZ]

11. I'm even more petrified of hitting an animal while driving

after hitting that deer while visiting BB the other month. That was disturbing to the max...:(

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

12. I hit a deer once

But I got really lucky. Despite hitting it doing about 55mph, the only damage was a crack to my grill/headlight. Both myself and the deer continued on.

[TZ]

14. BB had it worse...

I was too short to see over the grill but apparantly the deer went flying very far in the air...I watched it die though...ugh.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

15. Yeah, I pretty much just had a "holy fuck!" moment then continued on my way

I recovered by drinking lots and watching someone get hit with a Roman candle at 3am. It was my friend's 40th b-day party. He's not very mature.

[mwooldri]

28. Add me to the list.

I've hit two deer... one at 60mph - nearly totaled the Ford Focus and one at 30mph. In the first case I don't know whether the deer survived because my airbags deployed. In the second case, yes the young deer did die :(

Makes me nervous driving at night now.

Mark.

[graywarrior]

13. LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCrrnC8P1lk

But they do work for Geico...you know that right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB4AXOioCOU

[HamdenRice]

17. Are you in Tenn? "Grease the skillet, Ma! New bill will make road kill legal eatin"

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/14/us/statehouse-journal-a-road-kill-proposal-is-food-for-jokesters.html?sec=&spon=

If only the bill had contained the word ''deer,'' then perhaps the possum jokes could have been stopped flat. If the bill had just made it clear that someone who hits a deer on the highway can take home the carcass and eat it, then maybe Tennessee would have been spared all the raccoon cookbooks, the dead-skunk songs, the bumper stickers, the sniggering headlines, the laughter that has lighted up the Legislature for the last few weeks.

But no. With an unerring genius for the kind of thing that makes many Tennesseans squirm, the author of the bill decided to phrase it this way: ''Wild animals accidentally killed by a motor vehicle may be possessed by any person for personal use and consumption.''

In other words, it would be legal to eat road kill. Legal to eat the thousands of squirrels, opossums, raccoons and rabbits that meet a painfully horizontal death every year beneath rubber tires. As if a state law were preventing anyone from scraping a happy meal off the asphalt. As if anyone would even dream of it.

From the clamor of the reaction, it seemed as if the state government had ordered a reversion to Tennessee's mountain-man roots, closing the groceries and forcing residents to hunt for their supper. ''Grease the skillet, Ma! New bill will make road kill legal eatin','' read a headline in The Knoxville News-Sentinel last month. ''Better fetch ol' Granny's recipe for possum stew,'' said an article in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

18. I'm in NJ

I think it's already legal to eat road kill here. I just think you're supposed to report it, if you're going to eat the deer you killed.

[HamdenRice]

19. Just kidding, really. It was a funny article I've kept.

I thought the idea in your OP of these animals trying to commit suicide was funny.

That said one of the best meals of my life was road kill. It was a West Indian possum called a "manicout" (?). My host just scooped it up off the road, took it home and his son singed off the hair and cleaned it and his wife cooked it. It was shamefully delicious.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. NJ had a warning issued regarding eating squirrels a couple years ago

Apparently, some Jackson Whites were hunting on a superfund dump site and got lead poisoning from tainted squirrels.

[HamdenRice]

21. That's scary

also rabies has been on a see saw here in the northeast.

[Inchworm]

22. That is the first time...

I've seen someone mention Jackson Whites on the internets!! :P

I did a report in High School trying to prove that there are Hillbillys up north.

:rofl:

:hi:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

23. They live a bit north of where I am in Jersey

And, yes, we do have Hillbillies up north.

[merh]

24. They are not all trying to commit suicide

some are just adrenaline junkies, like the folks that sky dive or bungee jump. They are just getting their rush for the day.

like the squirrels in that insurance commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL1uFjSbvnA

squirrels are very athletic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaWA1vKmSNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xxKwesCKJk&feature=related

[Strong Atheist]

25. Question: What is an opossum?

Answer: Those flat animals that live on the road...

[cwydro]

26. We have suicidal land crabs

down here. I call them teenage crabs and figure they're daring each other.

[CreekDog]

27. I notice Jackrabbits run down the middle of the lane trying to outrun my car

At least in Arizona they did and it drove me crazy. They would jump out to cross the road and then see my car and start running in down the highway trying to get away. :eyes:

The only way I could get them to run off the road (where it was safe) was to flick the steering wheel (they seemed to be following the headlights).

[applegrove]

30. My mom and I were driving home from a road trip one summer's day when it started to pour rain.

Then all of a sudden frogs started to pour across the highway in huge numbers. There was no way to avoid squishing them. That was the most freakiest ride I've ever had in a car. I couldn't stand it. Thank god I wasn't driving. It went on for miles and miles.

[Parche]

31. Haruuuuuuuuuu kkkkkkkkkkka

You didnt hit Rocky did you?



:hi: :hug:

[BreweryYardRat]

32. I've found that the odds of squirrel suicide attempts...

...are inversely proportional to how slow you're going. (At least in residential neighborhoods.) The slower you drive, the likelier they are to leap out in front of you.

Aggravating, to say the least.

[sasquatch]

33. They're hoping you'll wing them and nurse them back to health in your very erotic home

:P:rofl: