This bloke did and ended up pranging his 1995 Ferrari Testarossa (F512M)
tinyurl.com/cn45ra9 - Daily Mail
Both the hedgehog and driver escaped unhurt.
(Now what was that joke about the difference between a hedgehog and Ferrari?)
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 9 Apr 12 at 14:26
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You sure it wasn't the never to be found stray black dog?, the one allegedly causing problems in the past by plod who got out of control whilst being a bit too exuberant.
-:)
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>> You sure it wasn't the never to be found stray black dog?,
>>
Or the child who allegedly ran across the road and whose certain death was only avoided by the heroic actions of 17 year old Wayne Fandango who swerved his lowered Corsa into a wall to avoid a collision.
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I used to pick them up if I saw them in the middle of the road going home after a call out.
Put the hedgehog in our garden.I would swerve if possible, but not killing somebody else in the process.
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For anything less than a human I do whatever will cause the least damage to me or my car. A hedghog has no chance, anything bigger will smash a front bumper (stupid name these days) so will be avoided if possible.
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So far I've hit a jackal (no damage), a small buck (centre wheel cap in an E30 BMW gone, but apart from that no damage) and a large dog (LOTS of damage.)
For a human (or large beast) I'd swerve. For smaller animals, I won't.
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I ran over a small dog which ran in front of me when I was doing 10mph approaching traffic lights. From the sound , it rolled over several times under the car, yelping as it burnt it's #### on the exhaust. It survived and ran away.
Never hit a hedgehog .. would swerve if I was going slow enough. Hit a pheasant at 70mph - new Volvo 740 needed new headlamp.
Friend hit a deer at 60mph one dark night. He survived. car and deer write off.
Was chased by elephant in car in South Africa.. The Mercedes had enough ground clearance to run over a big boulder in the unmade road... Got away: saw a car not so fortunate: all smashed up. Elephant was female with calf...
Try to dodge humans when they run in front of me. Once failed.. Court case exonerated me.. motorway - dark, rain.. ran in front of me.. Horrible.
Last edited by: madf on Mon 9 Apr 12 at 16:45
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Pigeon broke headlamp mount on my Fiat 131, headlamp fell out onto road and smashed when I hit the brakes.
Pheasant broke the fog lamp on the Altea.
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Never knowingly hit a hedgehog or for that matter a rabbit. Would slow down or steer but not to extent of a destabilising swerve.
Ran over a cat about 10yrs ago in the Xantia. Shot out from under a field gate between Tarbet and Airdasaig on the Isle of Harris. Was doing about 50 (car not cat) and had limited options to miss it; went under a wheel and car just shimmied slightly - horrible.
Made me think though - could a kid have appeared as suddenly? I don't think so, not from the field but there were houses on other side of road. Options would have been to risk collision with traffic coming other way or to ram onto verge and then demolish car's nearside on drystone wall. The latter I think but would I have had time to get son to move away from door? Not likely as he was probably asleep - even now at 17 he drops off in the back.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 9 Apr 12 at 16:56
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Stopped in time to avoid three porcupines in an urban street of Simons Town.
We were surprised to see them. They ignored us.
had lots of warnings re moose in the USA. Dip beams shine under them so only their legs are illuminated.
Last edited by: henry k on Mon 9 Apr 12 at 16:55
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Hitting an animal is a shocking enough experience, Heaven forbid a person.
Dog ran out on me after escaping early one morning, going like hell he was to see his neighbour who'd just crossed the road to his car, caught him out the corner of my eye and floored the brakes, fully loaded transporter doing just under 30 in 30 limit.
I stopped very quickly but the dog still went under the front beam axle but missed the wheels thankfully, came out from behind the then stopped cab and ran back to his dad who was mortified, and surprisingly considering i'd run over his dog apologetic...i fully expected a belting.
They took him to the vet straight away as the dog was obviously hurt, i phoned them later to see how he was, and he'd had to be destroyed due to internal injuries...the rib cage of a Ridgeback is too big to fit under a front beam axle, damn shame, lovely dog and people.
It was mentioned back at the depot that if the same had happened to certain other drivers there was a good possibility of severe load shift and possible car loss leading to further losses, a 30mph truck panic stop is extremely violent...didn't make me feel any better though, terribly sorry for the nice people concerned.
Shook me as much as anything for the fact it could have been a child, and despite my i thought quick reactions and excellent brakes still couldn't pull up in time, i always constantly scan for things where likely, but the dog caught me out.
As an aside that sort of scenario is one of the reasons i have always been against speed cameras (there is one within 100 ft of the dog accident), they make you paranoid about creeping even a fraction over the limit and the valuable seconds you take you eyes from their scanning to glance at the speedo or invetably looking for cameras you might miss that vital life saving clue such as a rolling ball or fleeting shadow...that a wasn't contributory cause in this incident though.
Yes i know you shouldn't speed and with 30 limits and built up areas especially i don't, still doesn't stop the worry about creeping just over the limit as the ground undulates, the cameras take your eyes and concentration from the important task of driving, well to me they do.
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I stopped to allow one across the road back along in broad daylight and it stopped in the middle! I had to get out and shoo it to the other side.
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>> I stopped very quickly but the dog still went under the front beam axle but
>> missed the wheels thankfully, came out from behind the then stopped cab and ran back
>> to his dad who was mortified, and surprisingly considering i'd run over his dog apologetic...i
>> fully expected a belting.
You shouldn't expect a beating GB, there's nothing you can do in that situation, if the guy had given you some grief it would have been pointless, animals can do some unexpected things and act as if there is no traffic around them. Saying that, most cats will stop at the side of the road then quickly scurry across with no hesitation.
I stopped a kid going under the wheel of an artic once. He was coming down the path on a scooter towards me, then just veered uncontrollably into the gutter between the wheels of the artic just as it was about to pull forward in a queue. Managed to lunge forward and pull him to safety - the artic stood on it's nose, luckily the driver just caught sight of me through his side window, and shouted 'is he alright?'. I think it shocked him more than anything. Mother came rushing down the path and wasn't too happy with her son, poor kid.
Luckily nothing came of it. It happened so fast, and part of you can't quite believe what you're seeing unfold in front of you.
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Managed to lunge forward and pull him to safety - the artic stood
>> on it's nose, luckily the driver just caught sight of me through his side window,
You really do need eyes up yer backside, kids and dogs.
Well done for spotting what was happening, not surprising the mother went ballistic, you love them so much much you want to batter 'em when they do something so deadly, its the sheer relief i'm sure.
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My old Dad was in the Police Service. He always cautioned about the rolling ball etc. and taught me awareness as did his colleagues. As for £££ Cameras, well Pah!...However, you guys, as with lots of other trades, professions, services etc., are up against (and have always been) the big wagging finger from above, with employers expecting more and more from the same vessel. It just can't be done, but it will NEVER change so we all just get on with it and accept it as it will take a life time to make sod all difference.
I still, as mentioned here before I think, can only wonder at the mentality of MILK TANKER drivers and their compatriots delivering DOMESTIC OIL. Mega fines just waiting to be collected. IF the authorities could be bothered.
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Following another car in Australia a couple of years back when it suddenly stopped causing us to brake sharply and stop behind it. Two blokes jumped out and a small spiky animal scuttled into the grass and rolled up in a ball, an echydna, the Aussie equivalent of a hedgehog. 'I couldn't just run over the little guy,' the driver of the car in front explained apologetically.
After journeys of any length in Ceylon in the late forties, we children used to inspect the blood and fur from last-across-playing monkeys and dozy pi dogs on the front of the car, whose mudguards after night journeys at certain seasons would be lined with frogs... Our father was a stern believer in not swerving for lesser creatures. Perhaps though it didn't happen as often as all that but stuck in the memory as such things do.
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>> dozy pi dogs >>
I haven't heard that phrase in years, AC!
Back on topic (sort of) Many years back, my brother hit a pedestrian.
The woman was on the side of the road, at night, and suddenly ran across in front of us, to catch a minibus taxi which had stopped on the other side of the road.
Lovely great skidmarks up to the point of impact and beyond.
Cops were on the scene within minutes, and took one look, breathalysed my brother, took measurements etc, smelled the breath of the injured female (busted hip) and passed everything on. Prosecuter did a 'decline to prosecute'.
A few months later got a demand for squilions from some ambulance chasing layer.
Merely sent them the Prosecuter's note, and told them to go forth and multiply.
Not pleasant by any stretch, but one of the joys of motoring in the third-world.
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I'll avoid anything if I can, but I won't swerve.
I learnt very early in my motoring career how much damage can be done at even relatively low speeds when a blackbird cost me a new headlamp. A little later I hit a bird at around 80 in the bottom RH corner of a windscreen. The driver's door never shut properly after.
I've caught a few pedestrians, but the worse injury I've inflicted on one was when he run out between a couple of stopped buses I was passing on a motorbike. Fortunately I was going slow and spotted him. He ran onto the end of my handlebars as I stopped, I didn't help matters by squashing his worst affected parts as I pulled in the clutch. After a few minutes he assured me he was OK (in a falsetto) and apologised. I expect he walked a little funny for a while.
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>> I'll avoid anything if I can, but I won't swerve.
Me too.
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I struggle to suppress the natural reaction to brake and swerve when something runs in front of the car.
My most spectacular hit was a dove which more or less exploded - down everywhere like an instant blizzard.
The bloke following (too closely) behind had to use his wipers to clear his screen of the feathers.
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i remember when i hit a badger. Thing must have been lurking in the central reservation it ran out didn't have much time to do anything, ended up under the front wheel. When i hit it it was like hitting a breeze block a real thump. Managed to get it into a layby. It took out the radiator, front bumper and bar and part of the aircon. Would i swerve yes if i had the chance!
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Badgers are another case. Very solid. The other thing is they don't seem to deviate at all. No stopping, freezing, or darting about, once they've started trotting across the road they are on a mission.
There must be a heck of a lot of them. Not a rare sight round here on the roads in the quiet hours, and plenty of road kill. The red kites are getting very numerous too, I think they must be living on badger.
I don't really swerve for anything as a reflex if I can help it. You've rarely time to identify it anyway, and if it's a rabbit it'll probably jump under the wheels regardless. The last time I swerved round a deer I nearly hit the one behind it that I hadn't seen. One of the local 18 year old lasses swerved round a rabbit (allegedly) and wrote her Corsa off on a telephone pole a while back. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease (as indeed was the case with the testo-rosso)
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Funny how all the dead badgers "roadkill" in Kite Country (you in East Northants?) are undamaged and in the gutter.
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>> Funny how all the dead badgers "roadkill" in Kite Country (you in East Northants?) are
>> undamaged and in the gutter.
Vale of Aylesbury/Chilterns. I know what you mean though ;-)
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>> Vale of Aylesbury/Chilterns. I know what you mean though ;-)
I saw a kite raiding a bin at Princess Risboro station, they are really big when on the ground, several pair have made it down to the outskirts of Slough, and there is a pair in the woods at bracknell often seen over the Chobham Commons,
They will be in down here in North Downs and Surrey Hills within the next three years at a guess.
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>> I saw a kite
Very common sight over Woodley. Distinctive screechy call as well. Only seen one on the ground once, when one took off from a field as I walked towards it with the dog - impressively big.
Last edited by: Focus on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 13:08
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The luckiest animal near miss I have had was at about 4am on a pitch black morning driving through Glen Coe. The first thing I saw was two red dots at windscreen height in the road ahead, I braked hard to a stop and a fully grown stag which had been standing in the middle of the road ambled off slowly. So glad he was facing me and his eyes reflected my headlights. If you hit one of them it takes the legs from under them and they come through the windscreen.
Fortunately there are no wild kangaroos in the UK, at mid bounce an adult is at windscreen height. They have no traffic sense whatsoever, and seem to be attracted to roads at dusk when they are well camouflaged.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 12:44
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Worth repeating this I think:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlPszRbUqVA
Don't think the cyclist had much choice in the matter!
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I once had to make a split decision , run over the rabbit or stuff my self into a tree, i was on a motorbike...the rabbit lost
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I was following someone yesterday who did an emergency stop for a magpie.
I guessed he was going to be that sort of driver because his brake lights fluttered nervously every time he passed an oncoming vehicle.
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>> I used to pick them up if I saw them in the middle of the
>> road going home after a call out.
>>
>> Put the hedgehog in our garden.
Here's what the British Hedgehog Preservation Society says about keeping hedgehogs in a garden.tinyurl.com/d3yus5a
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I hit a deer one dark winter's night coming down Burrington Coombe. Didn't even have time to consider avoiding it, it jumped straight off a bank in front of the car. Made a hell of a bang as it hit the front of the car then vanished. I stopped the car and looked up the road and although the front bumper was cracked there was no sign of the deer either in the road or on the verges.
As it's not the safest place to stop or to be walking by the roadside I carried on home after a quick look in the woods. Took a while to stop shaking, it was a bit of a shock to say the least.
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Mine was the same, Ash - late one evening on a B-road out of Basingstoke. It must have been late because it was June and it was dark. I rationalized later that I was right not to swerve and risk losing control, but the truth is probably that I had no time to decide anything.
The car needed new bumper, headlight, bonnet and wing, and some undenting to the panel behind the door, which the animal hit after, presumably, bouncing off the hedge it had emerged from.
I stopped long enough to verify that the car was drivable and that there was nothing to be done for the animal. Was only ten minutes from home, so phoned the police when I got there - this was pre-mobile 1992. I got an old-school desk sergeant who told me I'd done the right thing, and that I probably needed a cup of tea more than any questions from him. Still took me a long time to get to sleep that night.
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My near miss with a deer happened at over 30mph while on a mountain bike.
I was rushing down a steep unlit road off Epsom Downs in virtual darkness when the deer ran across in front of me. By the time I realised what it was I was past it.
Still come out in a cold sweat when I think what would have happened if I hit it.
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I think I posted at the time that a roe (I think) stag with quite big but furry-looking antlers ran into us in the dark a few months ago on an S-bend where a deer path crosses - seen them there a good few times over the years. It was crossing from the offside at the tail end of its harem I suppose, came off the bank into our headlights, I braked and swerved as far as possible to the n/s, the deer just had the sense to sheer off to the right but still gave the o/s of the car a good thump. The only mark was a muddy shoulder print on the door or rear wing. The deer vanished immediately and was probably quite OK.
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Mentioned elsewhere that we used to get deer in our garden in Scotland sometimes when the winters were harsh. Don't suppose they knew it was a garden mind. We were surrounded by open moorland so I guess our trees and walls were shelter from the wind. Used to have to shoo them out to get vehicles in and out sometimes. Fairly stupid beasts.
Taste nice though, especially as burgers...
:-)
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A venison burger needs a bit of bacon fat if it's not to turn into a beermat on the grill, but yes, proper tasty.
Remembering my duty of ungulate solidarity, AC's deer was either a roe or a stag, but it can't have been both. Roe come in buck and doe varieties; mine was a doe.
Wildebeest are antelope, of course, not deer, and would never do anything as stupid as walking in front of a car. Fording a river full of crocodiles, on the other hand - that's different; takes real brains, that does.
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>> Fording a river full of crocodiles, on the other
>> hand - that's different; takes real brains, that does.
>>
and that was the end of the gnus. And now the weather
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With this headline I couldn't get out of my mind the "Not the Nine O'clock news " I like Trucking song - where they squashed hedgehogs and then marked it on the side of the cab - U tube it , still very funny.
but no I wouldn't swerve unless the road was straight and empty - unless it was a human or a horse
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>> With this headline I couldn't get out of my mind the "Not the Nine O'clock
>> news " I like Trucking song - where they squashed hedgehogs and then marked it
>> on the side of the cab - U tube it , still very funny.
Not for the squeamish: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9lmCpIzhFo :)
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>> was either a roe or a stag, but it can't have been both. Roe come in buck and doe varieties; mine was a doe.
Well really WdB, I had always regarded buck and stag as synonyms, with buck sounding younger and more sprauncy. But now you come to mention it, I've never seen the term roe stag used by anyone else, while there are many pubs called the roebuck.
One is never too old for a corroded old penny to drop.
Er, doh...
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Mention of pedestrians has just brought back the memory of a young lad, maybe 12 or 13, whose foot I ran over 30 years ago in Huddersfield. I was driving fairly steadily,maybe 20mph, down a sort of service road between IIRC the Toyota dealer and Fartown crossroads, if anyone knows it.
He was on the bit of refuge between the service road and the main road, about to cross. I saw him lean forward as you do just before you put your foot forward - I'd never stopped to think before that walking is a sort of controlled falling over, and the first stage is that lean. I must have known instinctively that he had to put his foot in the road or fall face first. I hit the brakes, he duly put his foot in the road, and I skidded over it with wheel locked shredding his trainer.
I'm not sure I had time to swerve, but if I had I would have hit an oncoming car - the road can only be 20' wide. In a perfect world I probably would have swerved to avoid him, and hit the car, but no way can you process whether the hazard is human or animal, and whether it's a swerve or not-swerve decision in that second.
SWMBO and I gathered him up. He had no visible injury except the bruised foot, and he was all for hopping off. We persuaded him to let us take him home instead, where we picked his Dad up and took them to A&E to have him looked at. We took them home again afterwards.
All this seemed very logical at the time, but it sounds like a different world now. He was hurt, we looked after him. It was the following day when it hit me that we should probably have called the police immediately, and it never occurred to me at all as it would now that we could be accused of child abduction!
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>Wildebeest are antelope, of course, not deer, and would never do anything as stupid as walking in front of a car.
Ahhh, the Kudu that I hit must have been listening to his iPod and didn't hear me coming then.
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Would you swerve to avoid a hedgehog? - -
