To be upset by the amount of road kill on country roads?

[superstarheartbreaker]

I am a country girl. Today we drove to Bristol and the sat in front mowed down a beautiful buzzard ( not a clean kill). We were all v. Upset.
Not to mention about 5 squashed badgers and 3 foxes.

I'm not suggesting we start building hedgehog bypasses but why so much road kill this month?

this would be the wrong thread to talk about playing road kill bingo wouldn't it

Er, if you've killed a lot of birds and animals, what sort of roads were you driving on at the time? (Dual carriageway? Single track?)

On single track rural roads it should be NECESSARY possible to drive at a speed where it's easy to SLOW DOWN rather than swerve unless you meet farmed pheasants who will stand in road or fly into your vehicle regardless of the speed you drive at

Just sayin'.

Highway - what do you do if you see horses? or cyclists?
How about dog walkers? Wheelchair users?
Or are roads around your way now too unsafe for any of the above to use?

July I believe she answered that in her post ' I will swerve for anything bigger than a fox though as hitting it could cause an accident anyway'

Most terrifying driving experience I ever had was hitting a muntjac when it jumped out from undergrowth onto the dual carriageway where I was doing 70mph. I had no chance of avoiding it - cars to the right of me and cars in front and behind. Luckily (for us!) it bounced off the bonnet and didn't go through the windscreen and I managed not to brake hard or swerve and got us to a safe stop on the hard shoulder. If I hadn't, there would have been a high speed multi-car pile up and possibly fatalities.

Much as I don't like to see animals come to any harm, whenever I see roadkill my thoughts are always with the driver who hit it and hoping that they didn't come to any harm.

july if a cyclist, horse rider, dog walker or wheelchair user suddenly turned in the path of a motor vehicle on the rural roads where I live, they would be, and have been, killed or badly injured.

Responsible road users do not dart into the path of oncoming vehicles within their stopping distance. Wildlife does.

I've just been on a speed awareness course. It was very interesting. When someone talked in very similar terms about wildlife on country lanes the trainers did raise the question that in most cases you should consider whether you'd have been able to do anything about another road user in front of you. Everyone agreed that if something runs out last minute you have to stay safe, but actually that's pretty rare. Normally you have time to brake sensibly to avoid... unless you're going too fast...

Swerving can be a really unsafe thing to do. The right speed is the safest option. Too many people see national speed limits as their right or a target, conveniently overlooking the fact that we are supposed to drive at a safe speed for the road.
I drive on country lanes and other roads with bunny rabbits and other animals close by. While I see plenty of road kill I can count the number of animals I've killed in the last 10 years on the fingers of one hand! I think one rabbit and one squirrel. Touch wood of course!

my sympathy for the ickle cute bunnies is limited; there's a plague of them this year and it was a real struggle with the veg. They make excellent casserole though.

don't swerve to avoid an animal that is too small to go through the windscreen. Injured animals can be put down, badly injured humans have to continue to suffer, and dead humans leave others grieving, orphaned etc.

KeithTheCat Depends on different factors... speed, angle of creature to car, ground clearance of car etc. Pheasants have caused the most expensive damage to mine and DH's cars. Mostly they smash headlights, front number plates or get jammed into the radiator. I've never hit anything bigger. Mother in law hit a deer that jumped right onto her car bonnet. She's the slowest driver in the world, so speed obviously wasn't a factor there.

a wheelchair user round here wouldn't be able to use the roads, given the route I take has no footpaths... if I see something in the road I'll slow down but if it doesn't move I'm not stopping in the middle of a country lane. Obviously I slow to walking pace with horses

I drive in the middle of the night every time I go to work, either getting there or coming back due to shifts , and I've seen a lot more wildlife in the last couple of months than I did in the summer - I always see rabbits and squirrels , but lots and lots more deer and badgers than normal . This is also prime deer movement time between October and November , which is why there's a noticeable spike in deer related collisions - indeed my DH wrote my car off in October 3 years ago when a stag jumped out in front of him on the A10 when he was doing 70. Apparently it's believed there may be up to 74000 collisions every year involving deer , yet apparently more people are injured hitting whatever they do in trying to avoid the deer , than there are that hit the deer itself . DH hit his right in the centre as he had nowhere to go , and it looked like he'd driven into a telegraph pole .

I agree with Vycount that slowing down would definitely help people not mow over all the local wildlife. I'm on country roads a lot and always managed to brake in time to avoid killing anything. It's not obligatory to plow full steam ahead and hell mend any unlucky creatures in your way.

Can I just point out that a horse can spook sideways at a speed of nearly 60 mph. Saying "road users don't tend to jump out in front of you" is a bit worrying tbh

I drive a lot at night and at speed for work, so far I have hit the odd rabbit that's hurled itself under my wheels plus a seagull which flew into me. Other than that I've managed to avoid deer, owls, foxes and badgers without swerving or really sharp braking.

Round here the increase of badger road kill is because of the cull.

Those opposed flush the badgers out so they can't be culled... and they wander into the roads to get away - the badgers that is. Sadly none of the idiots who make the fuss have been injured.

It was the same last time - find the thread to see why I am so anti some of those who think they are helping the poor little badgers. Thankfully I have moved, so my chicken fence can no longer be the cause of a law suit.

For those who remember that story - we got a solicitors letter threatening action. I sent the PCSOs report by way of reply. Heard no more about it!

Exactly, TooMuch.

A horse can't really be a 'responsible road user'. A rider can be responsible within certain parameters, but any horse can spook.

Interestingly, drivers are now advised to treat cyclists on the road as if they are horses feeding them polos slowing down as you should for horses, giving the same amount of space and using the same degree of caution when overtaking, etc.

I think these degrees of caution are even more important bearing in mind the state of rural roads at the moment (deep and sharp edged potholes, overgrown hedges and verges, very high possibility of hidden debris in verges, etc.) because these factors mean that it's less possible for many road users (horse riders in particular) to move onto verges as traffic approaches.

On other threads I've mentioned problems for riders (and cyclists, walkers, etc.) using rural roads in recent years. I don't think it's just those road users who are disadvantaged by this problem. I think it ultimately affects all of us as rights of way will disappear if they can't be used.

Vyvount - I agree. Highway - I'm glad you slow down for horses.

I've been driving for 15 years and never hit anything apart from insects. I live in the countryside and use narrow winding lanes on a daily basis. If I see something at the side of the road then I slow down and keep an eye on it until I've gone past. I did have to get out the car to chase a peahen out of the way once as it kept walking down the middle of the road and wouldn't get out of my way :o

Can I just point out that a horse can spook sideways at a speed of nearly 60 mph. Saying "road users don't tend to jump out in front of you" is a bit worrying tbh

Oh, I agree - but a horse spooking through a hedge from an adjacent field onto a rural road into the path of an oncoming car is not foreseeable, any more than a rabbit, badger or phessie is.

Driving to accomodate the hazards you can see/anticipate (a horse and rider, or cyclist ahead) is very different from driving in a manner that anticipates the unpredictable appearance of a hazard within your stopping distance.

If I drove at a speed that ensured I could stop safely if a rabbit/deer/fox ran out from the hedge alongside me, I may as well employ a man with a red flag to walk ahead. I have heard the scream from a rabbit which ran under my car from the hedge as I was passing - it ran behind my front wheels and was caught by the rear offside wheel. I didn't even see it, as the front of the car had passed the point at which it came out of the hedge when it ran out into my path.

I've never hit anything bigger than an insect but did have a ginormous buzzard almost fly into my windshield. I was quite proud that I didn't swerve.

On a side note, the council were flushing our drainage pipes by forcing water through it at high pressure. One of the workers stuck his head down to see what was causing a noise only to find one very pissed off badger running at him with a torrent of water following!!

I've hit a couple of pheasant over the years, also a couple of rabbits. I do my best to avoid them, and I don't speed, but there are times particularly with stupid pheasants when you just cant avoid them.

I also hit a hare one night, the angle of the road combined with the direction the hare was running in made it impossible to see in the dark. Next day I had a lovely job of cleaning hair and guts that were smeared up the side of the car.

As for TB in badgers, I have heard reports previously that rather than the badgers infecting the cows, it's the cows infecting the badgers.

There's no denying that both cows and badgers suffer from TB, but I don't think the evidence is actually clear that the badgers are infecting the cows. It's even possible that both are getting it from an as yet unknown 3rd source.

We've swerved and slammed on our breaks to avoid rabbits. But we do it within a reasonable amount. If there's another car or it's going to cause an accident, we swerve a little and hope the poor thing made it between our tires.

We have two friends, who's first impression you'd probably get from them would be tough guys or thugs because of their size and how they dress. They have the softest hearts for animals, it's funny to listen to them talk about their near misses with hitting squirrels and bunnies.

Wakey who mentioned a horse bursting through a hedge?!

You said "Responsible road users do not dart into the path of oncoming vehicles within their stopping distance. Wildlife does." My point is that a horse being ridden responsibly may well dart into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Your assumption is flawed which makes it possibly dangerous.

Your assumption is flawed which makes it possibly dangerous.

Apologies - my assumption is that all drivers slow to walking pace or slower when passing horses they have seen and are aware of - it doesn't avoid the risk that the horse will spook, and collisions occur, but does reduce the combined impact speed (and goodness, even then, don't they leave a dent!)

A horse may suddenly dart into the path of a car - just as a child or loosed of might - but a driver who is aware of them in advance will take appropriate caution. An unseen wild animal will not have the same precautions taken.

*loose dog might , that should say

my assumption is that all drivers slow to walking pace or slower when passing horses they have seen and are aware of

I so wish all drivers would be that responsible, Wakey

3 emergency stops this week on my road, 2 pheasants and one squirrel. So far only knowingly killed a pheasant but it was on a 50 road and it just walked into the road. I have tried to kill rabbits but too quick - they eat all my garden plants/flowers/veg, I see them as vermin - the cat does a better job than my car luckily.