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AIBU?

I've just ran over a pheasant :(

191 replies

lexiepix · 26/02/2015 17:32

On a narrow country lane, doing 50, they usually move out of the way but this one stayed right in the middle.

It made such a thud, a huge cloud of feathers afterwards and I've just been picking the feather out of my grill.

I had no idea what way it was going to go so didn't swerve, also I didn't break much as expected it to move as they do 1000s of times before.

I'm feeling really shit about it. Am I a total cunt for not slowing or swerving?

OP posts:

Report

SunnyBaudelaire · 27/02/2015 09:13

tweestuff she was doing 50 on a 'narrow country lane' and hit an animal that she could not be bothered to slow down for because she was 'running late'.
That is not OK.

Littlefluffyclouds81 · 27/02/2015 09:14

Restingfuckface - a long time ago I used to work at a festival and pulled a few strings to get bodger and badger in when he phoned the office way after entertainments applications had closed. He was one of my childhood icons!

As a thank you, he gave me and my friends:

A) a go on his crack pipe
B) a large bomb of mdma

We spent the evening partying with him, and he got his badger out for us. He shattered my childhood illusions and eventually fell in a ditch.

And op: don't worry, pheasants do whatever they can to get under your wheels.

GerundTheBehemoth · 27/02/2015 09:16

CocktailQueen, shooting estates release millions of captive-bred and -reared pheasants into the wild every autumn (conservative estimate of around 25 million each year). Of course the vast majority of them won't survive to breed the following year, but in autumn at least we have a hell of a lot more pheasants than robins.

meglet · 27/02/2015 09:16

50 on a country lane is fine in the right conditions. my old advanced driving teacher took me out to demonstrate and he went at 50-60 a lot of the time. IIRC it's all to do with surroundings and potential stopping distances.

SunnyBaudelaire · 27/02/2015 09:17

and tweestuff, I am being 'judgey', although surely you mean 'judgemental', as I live in the deep country with city fuckwits who come up at weekends and think it is OK to drive like maniacs.

SunnyBaudelaire · 27/02/2015 09:18

most narrow country lanes twist and turn though do they not meglet?

ThatBloodyWoman · 27/02/2015 09:20

I walk narrow country lanes a lot.
If you ran over a pheasant doing 50 you were going too fast imo.
On the lanes we live on you can have loose livestock in the road,and piles of fly tipping.

frostyfingers · 27/02/2015 09:21

This says it all:

I've just ran over a pheasant :(

ThatBloodyWoman · 27/02/2015 09:28

I cannot believe anyone who says that its ok to speed on the lanes.
I personally think there are large stretches where the speed limit should be reduced -if it could be policed.
Unfortunately the lanes are so often used for impatient cut through drivers,who have no respect for wildlife

Hakluyt · 27/02/2015 09:29

Two points- if you live in the country you will eventually hit a pheasant. They are very stupid and have no road sense.

But there are no circumstances in which 50 is acceptable on a narrow country roads. None. Absolutely none.

Abra1d · 27/02/2015 09:32

If the lane is national speed limit, 60, and the OP was doing 50, she was not speeding, ThatBloody.

It is not necessary to drive at 30 mph in the countryside unless that is is the speed limit or conditions insist.

lexiepix · 27/02/2015 09:35

Ffs I have said many times it was pecfectly safe, I was going on an A road. Only I can say if it was unsafe. I'm tempted to post the google maps pos.

OP posts:

Abra1d · 27/02/2015 09:36

It depends on what you are defining as 'narrow'.

I certainly wouldn't drive on some lanes here at more than 35 (even though they are national speed limits, ie, 60), but on straight narrow lanes with no oncoming traffic, no hedges to impair my vision, in good road conditions and good visibility, I might briefly reach 50 before pulling back to 36.

BigRedBall · 27/02/2015 09:38

At least it wasn't a peacock. There's a sign up outside a farm near where I live with "slow down, haven't you killed enough peacocks already!" Or something like that. I'm suprised why they let peacocks roam a national highway speed limit country road. .

AndThenISaid · 27/02/2015 09:38

I am a vet and never swerve for them.Better a pheasant life than a human one!

stealthsquiggle · 27/02/2015 09:39

Well we live on a B road (wide enough for 2 cars to pass easily, road markings, etc, but it's definitely a country road and part of an official "scenic drive") and people do easily 70mph past our front gate. I wish they bloody wouldn't. 50mph would be entirely reasonable, though, and it is the only place for about 3 miles either way that you can safely overtake.

lexiepix · 27/02/2015 09:39

It was here

I've just ran over a pheasant :(

OP posts:

Thoughtfulduck · 27/02/2015 09:40

My FIL was driving at 60 once with his window open and a pheasant flew in to the side of his head! He said he thought he's been shot at first...until he saw the pheasant on the passenger seat

ThatBloodyWoman · 27/02/2015 09:41

I am well aware of that Abra - it was directed more to the poster who suggested 100 was ok.
I didn't say it was necessary to drive at 30 everywhere in the countryside.
But there are places where 30 is more appropriate than 50 or 60.
The national speed limit is a limit not a target.

Thoughtfulduck · 27/02/2015 09:42

And for what it's worth 50mph is absolutely fine for that road, IMHO

Abra1d · 27/02/2015 09:43

In those conditions 50 does not seem excessive. And you have road markings! Round here we do not and this means you have to drive more slowly because large numbers of the locals are not capable of working out what half the width of the road would be and keeping their vehicle within that half.

coalscuttle · 27/02/2015 09:46

Most country lanes are 60, nationsl soeed. limit, because there are no houses nearby. Op certainly wasn't speeding. And most of the pheasants in this country are bred and released by shooting estates. That's why they are so stupid, they are not wild in the true sense of the word.
Can't believe some of the over reactions on this thread. I bet that pheasant had a better life and death than your average supermarket chicken.

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MaidOfStars · 27/02/2015 09:48

OP, you're going to get a stream of people saying you misled them now, because by 'narrow country road', they thought you meant bendy and hilly with piles of dry stone wall crumbling onto it.

I drive at 50 along those too

richthegreatcornholio · 27/02/2015 09:49

Sunny I said that you could, not that you should. And yes, I'm fully aware of the punishments for exceeding the speed limit but for now I have a squeaky license although I was once caught at 128mph on a French autoroute on a run back to Calais.

MissDuke · 27/02/2015 09:49

See, imo you are changing your story. That picture is not of a narrow country road and there was no previous mention of a van. How can you expect sensible responses if you do not give the relevant information? And why are you still referring to running late? Either you did not slow down for safety reasons or because you were late - one is ok, one is not....

I totally agree yanbu if that is indeed the location it happened at and if there was a van behind you.

However if what you initially wrote is actually the truth then yabvvu.

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