Sad stories of road kill?

[Lonestar]

Let's see, 17 years in my 1965 chevy Pickup, I was coming home on the back roads from a ranch I had to do comminuty service so my very first speeding ticket wouldn't go on my record. :angel:

Anyways, I'm driving like I do in the beast...had no clue how fast I was going, (speedo didn't work...I'd say 60ish?) when I come up on a good mile of straight road you can see down. As I'm booking along, I see a flock of guinea fowl right smack in the middle of the road. Now, by the time I get with 500 to 400 yards, MOST of the flock run like what they are off the road...save one stupid little bird still right in the middle of the road...standing straight up and looking right at me as I speed towards him. I couldn't scare because my horn didn't work (like half the shit in my truck) and thinking "ok, he's gunna move when I get closer...." THUMP!!! "...Nope..."

 

That bird kissed the chrome bumper of my truck and when I look back in the rear view, all I see is the bird spinning in the road like a bowling pin. So I did what any 17 year old driver did....I kept going thinking, "Oh shit I hope nobody saw me!" Needless to say, I love animals and do my best to avoid them, even the ones that have already been ran over. The only other thing I've hit that was alive were frogs in FL during first of spring when the rains come....little bastards were ever where! Anyways, that's my story.

[peanutbuttercups]

I wish they are a destructive creature

[cdub42]

when i was like 17, i was hauling ass on a gravel backroad out in the hills just outside of the dalles oregon, when i came flying around a corner and saw a deer standing in the road. i slowed down and stopped. my friend and i sat there and watched it for a few minutes, until it walked off the road. so as i passed it going about 15 mph the damn thing stopped freaked out, turned around, and ran head first into the side of my truck. i wasn't going fast enough to hurt the deer, but the force of it face planting my fender messed up its face and broke its leg. so we stop and get out. the deer was making a horrible moaning gargling noise as it was trying to crawl off the road. my friends first words where "thats a great shot! you didn't ruin the meat!" so we set about the process of putting the thing out of its misery. it happened to be the one time neither of us didn't have a gun in the truck or even a knife. so we hunted around and found a big rock to smash its head with. the whole time the deer is moaning and trying to crawl up the embankment.. after several unsuccessful attempts with a briefcase sized rock it finally quit making noise and trying to crawl away, that was until we tried to pick it up to toss it in the back of the truck. another few rounds with the rock and it was done and in the truck. fast forward a few hours later and it was skinned and hanging in our friends shop. he was right. other than a messed up head and broken leg, the meat was just fine. and damn tasty too. with just the right amount of 79 datsun 620 seasoning.

[WildCountryRose]

First thing I ever hit was a HUGE toad in my old 75 b210.. it was a dark rainy night early fall (its always raining in grays harbor) I swerved to miss it and misjugded my wheel span, I didn't know what it was until I felt it "crunch' under my tires I cried for three days lol since then I've hit 3 birds (1 in the b210, 1 in the hubbys 4wd 620, 1 in his old 2wd 620 and 1 in my 620 flat bed) all in may on a sunny day.. datsun= bird magnent this year when I hit the bird in my flatbed I had bird butt on my windshield for 3 days

[KA620KC]

I've hit and killed 5 rabbits so far in my 620. 3 of them were on my street while only doing 25mph. Stooopid rabbits. No lower valance so i'm sure my strut rods took em out.

[the nice machine]

well as far as i know, i've hit a few hundred frogs and a mouse. the mouse was a few weeks ago, i saw it run out into the road and under my tire... it POPPED like a firecracker. i was surprised and a little bit sad.

but the craziest road kill i've seen...

about 12 years ago i was living at the base of mt. Hood in oregon. i lived near a busy highway (hwy 26, a particularly dangerous stretch full of mountain passes) that always had a lot of fully packed logging trucks going through. one night about 3am during the summer a semi or something hit a juvenile brown bear. i saw it right after it happened, it weighed about 125 pounds. a decent amount of meat. i figured that the D.O.T. would pick it up since it was a road hazard, but the next morning as i was leaving i saw that so many log trucks had run over it that it was flattened down to a 6" tall patch on the highway, dragged out about 100 feet. well, nobody ever picked up the bear, so the bear streak on the road kept getting flatter and longer, until about 6 weeks later it was a 500 foot long stain on the road. eventually winter started and the rain washed it away. true story. the end.

[WICKED JESTER]

today on my way to work a big stray dog in the road no time to react held onto the steering wheel BAM instant red all over my windshield the dog took out my radiator left front fender and front bumper man i didnt realize that a dog could cause so much damage to a corolla. on the bright side at least i got the day off

[Z Speed]

Summer 2002 - three month old BMW M3 - cruising HWY 2; hit straight push to 70+ mph - deer talking summer stoll in middle of road - slam brakes/hit deer/hit guard rail - BMW totaled - deer's days of stolling over- month or so later new BMW M3...

 

I got a few broken bones out of it too.... Fun times!...

[darrel]

Middle of wyoming driving a '79 280zx, doing about 70 on I-80 west bound. Spotted a big jackrabbit coming from right to left, perfect collision course, bump, bump, nothing but fur flying in the rear view mirror.

[Parkinglotslider521]

Closest collision i have ever had was riding shotgun in my dads truck towing his 30+ft proline. We were on the way back from an awesome day of grouper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico and we get about 25 miles inland just past Dunnellon. We are passing the local po-dunk high school, which is surrounded literally for miles by cattle fields. The sun was just setting, the music was blaring, and the cigarettes were amazing after a day in 6-7 ft seas being sprayed by salt. Dead in the center of a tight corner is the crest of a pretty big hill, big for Florida at least, and in the shadow of the hill was what looked like a huge swarm of bees rising at once. I look and point, and just as my dad starts to say "roll up the window" the largest flock of birds i have ever seen darts straight for the truck, and the second the window closes a decent sized bird slams into the passenger window hard enough to leave some kind of splatter on the glass. Another second slower and i would have ate that bird. We found him in the boat when we went to spray it out that night. Couldn't even tell what kind of bird it was. Poor Bastard

 

I am lucky though i guess, in the many thousands of miles i have logged tearing ass on some back road i havent hit any deer or bears, although when my wife was pregnant with my first kid i had my sketchiest close calls ever. We were on the way from St.Augustine to Gainesville, about an hour and a half long trip coming home after a day at the beach. All of a sudden she looks at me and says "I think im having contractions" 

Oh Shit

20 minutes later they are 3-5 minutes apart

Oh Shit

we are about half way home, and i have no clue where any hospitals are except for the one in Gainesville. I ask Tia, "what do you want me to do" She says "punch it"

So im doing about 120 im my Talon, hauling ass with the high beams and hazards on, when we start ripping sharp corners. 

wind out 5th, brake, drop to 3rd, punch it, 4th, down to 2nd, make my way back to 5th, repeat. Sketchy, Over.

so as we start getting close to Gainesville, we start hitting fog. wonderful. in the patch of fog i see what i think is a street light, so i gun it. what i saw when i came out of the fog was 3 deer standing like a roadblock, staring at me. i locked all 4 tires up, dropped it from 4th to 2nd, ripped it onto the shoulder, and slid by them still locked up. we stopped just past the deer, i look back and they are still standing there! I look at Tia, ask her if shes ok, to which she replies "well the contractions stopped"

never heard of that happening. i knew my son was going to be born in my car, but nope. 2 weeks later her water broke while i was working on my buddy's Ford Falcon, and i still flick the bird at deer in that area to this day.

[Dat Lurka]

A cat was sleeping in the engine bay of one of my dads cars...

He turned it on...

No more cat...

Blood everywhere...

 

I killed a squirrell :( I like squirrells..

Almost hit a fucking crow today, those fuckers really like nuts

 

That happened to me. It was a feral that I fed when I was young. I was about 8. A friend and I saw it fall out from under my moms van when she was leaving for work. It lost a good bit of it's head from the fan. I remember my stepdad putting it down with his .25 pistol.

 

 

I remember hitting frogs on bicycles. Both on purpose and accident. There were a lot of frogs in Florida. And giant millipedes too.

The first time I hit an animal with a car that I know of was recent. I was driving a Benz 380sec that I was working on back to my uncles house at about 10pm and a rabbit jump right under the tire.

[Green Queen]

i hit a kitten one time.

i didnt know if i killed it so i back up the car..

yup i killed it  :crying:

ran over the poor thing twice :no:

i will NEVER forget that.

R.I.P. kitten :angel:

[hurricane14]

 i have "popped" (literally) a few pigeons over the years when they have underestimated the acceleration and cornering of the lowered  72 c-10 350 shortbox......

[Master-O-Turbonics]

Hit a pretty good size deer with my 87 samurai on 31" super swampers and 1/4" steel angle iron front bumper... and I was going 55mph at time of impact. locked up my brakes just before impact. I think I jumped OVER the deer. left 11.5" wide black stripes on the road. the deer was obliterated...

 

 

Suzuki samurai undamaged other than leaving a slightest bend in that 1/4" thick bumper that you cant even see.

FTW.

[metalmonkey47]

Smacked a possum a few weeks back going about 30mph. I went right over the top and heard a loud BANG. I'm guessing he hit his head on my crossmember going under, because when he came out from underneath he was spinning in circles and running around.

 

 

Wasn't really sad. I was laughing my ass off.

[RBs30]

i slammed into a turkey doing 60 in my brothers E-250 work van last night. that thing exploded... literally blew the fuck up, like someone tied pillows around a quarter stick of dynomite and lit it. feathers everywhere. Atleast i got my xmas dinner all figured out.

[darrel]

i slammed into a turkey doing 60 in my brothers E-250 work van last night. that thing exploded... literally blew the fuck up, like someone tied pillows around a quarter stick of dynomite and lit it. feathers everywhere. Atleast i got my xmas dinner all figured out.

So, no need to tenderize.

[RBs30]

just gotta acquire some ham now  :devil:

[JoeCool]

Back in the late 90's I had a deer ram my fairly new 94 Nissan hardbody truck I used to have. I worked third shift at Walfart. Had too many hours and was coming home early at about 3am one night. Never saw the damn thing. It ran out of the woods and rammed the front corner. It must have rolled end over end down the side of the truck. Did $5000 in damages.

 

Fast forward to last week...

I am driving the 720 to Lowes for a job interview and I almost hit a bunch of vultures that were eating a dead opossum in the road.

[Jayden71]

Hit a deer in the Honda once. $2800 and 150,000 miles later its all good

[Siempreloco]

I was coming home from a party at about 2 am , it was raining and i was cruising at about 65 in my datsun 620 ..on a 2 lane highway. I look ahead, seeing something in the road, i dont have another lane to go into and figure whatever it is, i could clear it, right before i went over it, it turned and looked at me. It was the most pitiful looking soaked kitten i have ever seen, I didn't have time to swerve, so i thought the best bet was to straddle him and maybe i'd miss. My Front crossmember begged to differ, since it's only like.... maybe 6 inches off the ground.. IF that..i heard a loud clunk as i went over, and as much as i hate cats i honestly felt pretty bad for the little guy, retelling the story i usually laugh, but only because i was dumb enough to think MY truck was going to clear him.

[iorntoast]

Hit a cat about a week ago going 45. Felt so bad, I got out, and moved it off the road. Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing a cat ran over a million times. 

[danfiveten]

Couple years ago in my box truck on graveyard, coming out of north wilsonville saw a deer come flying out of the middle of the freeway, got hit by the semi in front of me, and then its front end flew through the air and all over my truck....was not a cool time. I had fur, blood, and crap all over my truck. 

 

Another time coming back from a party at like 4am, that my old man didnt know i was at, and on my way back to my moms, i drove past their house in battle ground (had to to get by lol) and was thinking thank god, all of a sudden a raccoon comes out, i see him so i go into the other lane, then the lil shit turns around, so i go back into my lane, and whats the little fucker do, TURNS AROUND AGAIN, then BOOM, i hear him rolling under the 510...i had to pressure wash the fur off from under neath, I had chunks hanging from my exhaust as well lol. 

[mike]

Danfiveten, that reminds me of a bad drive to work in the late 90's...

 

I had an old 68 dodge polara that was lowered with about 3" of clearance. I only had single exhaust with the y pipe going between the tranny and oil pan. I didnt have an inspection plate on the trans which on a chrysler 727 is just a half circle shape flat tin covering the front of the torque converter.

 

I was on a 2 lane highway doing about 65-70 and came around a corner and there was an already dead dog in the middle of my lane with oncoming traffic in the other. I was hard on the brakes but it was either a head-on, hit the dog or take the ditch. When I hit I felt it crunch under the crossmember and it got stuck between the oil pan and tranny. After dragging it for a couple hundred feet there wasnt much left to pick up and I could hear it grinding away inside the bell housing. I could have stopped sooner but when I hit the brakes the front would dive and shove more up in there, enough to slow the engine down... It is a sound and smell that I will never forget, with all the "stuff" dripping onto the hot Y pipe from the exhaust... I was gagging and fighting down vomit the rest of the 30 miles to work. On a side note, just to keep it Datsun related, I got the built small block that I had in the dodge out of an early 620 that someone had made a drag truck out of.  

 

Another time I was in a ford F350 dually towing a trailer with both truck and trailer loaded to the hilt. I was on another 2 lane high way with lots of traffic in both directions and a goose and a bunch of goslings decided to cross the road from the opposite side. The oncoming traffic stopped in time and it would have been one of those "awww cute" Kodak moments except there was no way in hell to stop the truck in time. My best friend was in the car behind with his kids and he said that what the truck didn't get, the trailer did. Feathers and goose parts everywhere. His 6 yr old daughter wouldn't talk to me for days...  

 

If its safe I will move roadkill off the side of the road. I cant believe how many people see it and do nothing; or worse yet intentionally run it over again.

[Jimmyray73]

A few close calls over the years: Spring of 1993 I'm on my way back to school in Bowling Green after a weekend at the parents' house. At that time of night US 6 was usually empty of traffic and Johnny Law in the big empty parts of Ohio so I was motoring along at a pretty good clip. I saw headlights in the distance and thought they were flashing brights at me so I eased off a bit. Then I realized they weren't getting bright and dim, the beams were interrupted. I dropped from 5th to 3rd and stood on the brakes, skidded to a stop in the middle of the road (the ditches are a car eating depth there) and I swear the last deer in the herd licked my passenger side window.

 

Fast forward 9 years, spring of '02 and I'm renting an old farmhouse with a few friends in another part of rural Ohio. I'm on my way home from a fried chicken and beer run to the nearest town and I've got a '92 Plymouth Laser RS Turbo AWD. Needless to say the throttle was wide open once I hit the edge of town 'cause it was a straight shot down a well-paved state route to get home. The only curve and elevation changes were when the road went over the flood plain of a local river and as I come screaming down into that valley I see a big honking buck in the middle of the road. For the first time in my life I saw a deer turn tail and run away rather than freeze and get nailed. In 2 years of hooning that Laser around farm country I never really got near a deer, and that's a rare thing. I think they were freaked out by the turbo whistle.

 

Fall of '04 (I think) and the Laser has been replaced by a Focus ZX3, and I've moved a little closer to civilization. It's still mostly rural though and I'm in a hurry 'cause work ran late and I have to get to the girlfriend's house for a family dinner. I'm doing about 85 in a 35 zone on a chip & tar 2-lane that follows the top of a river gorge when I see a herd of deer crossing the road from the treeline on the river side. There was nowhere to go off the road without hitting a tree at best. Somehow I managed to slip between two of the four deer I saw without hitting them, I have no idea how.

 

The one that didn't get away: Last October I was on the way home from work at night and I'm going roughly 35 in a 35 zone. I know, I've slowed down a bit after all those close calls. The road drops down to a bridge over a creek about a mile from the apartment I was in then, and the area is a green belt of forest dividing a few housing developments.  As I was cruising down the hill and passing an oncoming car a fat raccoon ran right out in front of me. Once the weather warms up again I'll be patching up the front fascia from the impact. Thankfully the little bugger only did cosmetic damage but my tC looks like it's sneering now.