Owl Dead

matttye

DKLS wrote: »

The Op reminds me of a friend of mine, who decided she didn't want to squish a fluffy wuffy animal and it would be far better if she swerved into a stone bridge.

The good news was the fluffy critter lived, the bad news she killed herself and her two kids.

You're a nice guy to talk about your late 'friend' that way.

funkycoldribena

Hit an owl once.Made a lovely mulligatawny soup with it.

JustinR1979

You have to consider possible harm to human life when dealing with animals.
Small - run it over, don't risk hitting something else or someone else hitting you.
Big - could come through screen and hurt you, so try to avoid.

DKLS

matttye wrote: »

You're a nice guy to talk about your late 'friend' that way.

Just being pragmatic, the choice she made that night had a devastating impact on that family which is still being felt today, my mate is a shell of the person he was trying to keep going for the kid that wasn't in the car.

Ebe_Scrooge

I can remember a long time ago, when I was very young. We saw a lorry in front of us hit a rabbit - squished its leg, mashed it into the tarmac, the poor thing was flopping around with its leg stuck to the road. So my dad deliberately ran over it to put it out of its pain. Of course that was the kindest thing to do, rather than let it suffer for hours, but as a small child it took some explaining.

alastairq

I slow...and, if necessary, stop, for animals and stuff on the roads...sometimes even for ignorant human beings!

I don't care what sort of issues I give to a driver behind...if my actions create an issue, they're too close to start with.

The other day I witnessed a gas tanker driver stop in the middle of a country road, get out, and go and pick up a hedgehog that was bimbling along the tarmac. He put it into the grass verge, gave a cheery wave to the car driver behind, and continued on his way. Well done him!

Last month, I came across a young lad, who had stopped in the middle of a main road, hazards on, flagging down all the other traffic to stop.....just so a family of ducks could make their way across unharmed.

Well done him!

Not everybody, thankfully, is insensitive to the lives of other creatures.

Sometimes mowing down some sort of creature is unavoidable. Doing so saddens me at the time, as it would be an unnecessary death.

I am conscious that a cat or dog might be some small person's beloved pet.

So I exercise care when driving that great big machine for which I have been given a licence to operate.

Dan-Dan

aardvaak wrote: »

let alone a lorry driver with places to be

At 5.30 in the afternoon?

The lorry was far too big to be there - there seems no reason for it - not a main 'A' or 'B' road.

The driver probably thought he didn't care as he knew he had little marking on his vehicle so unlikely to be traced

I needed cheering up this morning , cheers!!

mcpitman

What a hoot! (sorry couldn't resist)....

Darwinian theory, survival of the fittest and all that...

Would I stop for a small animal if doing so would cause any danger to other road users? Yes, I suppose so, I certainly wouldn't aim at it or speed up!

Would I stop for a small animal if in a flow of traffic (@ for example 40-60 mph)? No.

Would I stop for a deer/large animal if in a flow of traffic (@ for example 40-60 mph)? Hell yes, or at least I would do my best, selfishly to protect myself, but in doing so i wouldn;t swerve into other lanes.

Strange opening attack on Lorry Drivers by the OP. Of course HGV's are allowed on smaller roads (most of them anyway).

To be honest doubt the lorry driver even realised something weighing a few pounds hitting something weighing many tonnes.

SmellyPetrol

as a newbie - I'm finding it very difficult to work out the sarcasm post to the serious ones!!

Throbbe

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Provided that it's safe to stop, that's exactly what I would do, in fact I have done it on a couple of occasions.
Once was for a pheasant and once for a squirrel. I didn't use a wheel brace for the squirrel but I used the fire extinguisher I had in the car as I had previously seen what an annoyed squirrel could do to the snout of an inquisitive dog.
(They might look all soft and cuddly but they can be nasty little ba*****s at times.)

Almost certainly urban legend, but I heard a story about one of our road maintenance chaps hitting a cat in his pickup, and electing to do the decent thing. Walked over to the cat lying in the verge and put it out of it's misery with a shovel to the head. It was only when he walked back to the pickup that he spotted the cat he'd actually hit lying a bit further up the road.