Would you stop for a pigeon??

[BigGreenApple]

So, driving along today, pretty wide country road which I know very well. Driving within the limit. I came round a band and there were several pigeons in the road. I braked, a couple flew up, one was too slow and I hit it.
Damaged the front grill of the car which is apparently going to cost £££.
There was a car behind me, and I was taught that it was better to hit something small than stop suddenly (unless it's a person, large animal) and risk being rear ended. And PIGEONS NORMALLY FLY OFF.
DH is pissed off. I have in the recent past kerbed the car (twice ) which I admit was my bad judgement.
But today I think I was right to do what I did.....yes?
Also, I had DC in the car! Surely better to hit a bloody bird than do more than slow slightly and risk a bump??

It's simple, isn't it: drive at a safe speed, leave an adequate braking distance, stop if safer to do so. I wouldn't brake at 70 mph for ducklings if I thought it would cause a pile up. If I didn't, I would. And it is perfectly safe to drive 10mph or so under the speed limit if you want to.

YABU

Olivers If you want to be absolutely sure your cat is never knocked down, you keep it indoors. I say this as someone who has had many cats over the years, a number of which were knocked down. I would still rather give any cat of mine the freedom to explore & take the risk of it being run over or stolen (pedigree), but I recognise that's my choice & I have to live with the consequences. Being generous, perhaps it was your first cat & the first time its happened for you, but it is an avoidable tragedy if you make different choices as the owner.

I was injured and wrote my car off after being hit by the driver behind when I slowed for a rabbit.
I didn't think about it I just reacted but according to the police I should have been able to stop dead for no reason at all without being rear ended if the person behind wasn't too close.
In theory no I wouldn't stop for a pigeon ( or rabbit again) unless it was safe but when something darts in front of you it's very hard not to instinctively brake

Exactly, Hopping. At 40mph the person behind you should give you around 120 feet in dry conditions. Now when I drive like that on a road where overtaking is possible, three cars will try to get into that 120 feet. There are a lot of shit drivers out there who think they are doing an excellent job!

Sometimes people brake or swerve automatically. I am an Advanced Driver and have done military courses designed for tactical and 'at speed' driving. I'd say I was a bloody good driver. However I braked, hard, when a bloody pigeon hit my windscreen the other week. Damn thing dropped out of a tree above me going round a corner and I'm eternally thankful that there was no-one close behind me as they'd have been sitting in my back seat if they were.

Pheasants are the worst I think for being on the roads. I remember going to visit my sister in the Cotswolds around the 'Glorious 12th' and in the space of about 3 miles we must have come across 30 or more, dead and alive, down the winding country road to her house. We sadly hit 2 in the space of 200m or so and DD was damn near hysterical (she was only 5). DH ended up driving at about 20mph because she was so distraught.

I hit and killed a pigeon once because the car behind me was driving too close. If I'd done an emergency stop he would have ploughed into me. If the road behind me had been clear I would've stopped, no question.

But I also once sat in a queue for about ten minutes while the driver at the front waited for a mother duck to leisurely lead her ducklings across the road. Nobody seemed to mind waiting!

This is interesting. www.quittance.co.uk/help-article/when-is-it-safe-to-emergency-stop-for-an-animal

"Should you perform an emergency stop for a dog?

Many road users (and dog lovers) would argue yes. However, if you slam your brakes on to avoid hitting a dog, you may present a danger to other road users.

The car behind might crash into the back of your car, which could cause injury or damage to either vehicle, and raises issues around who is responsible.

The driver who performed the emergency stop may be at fault, if they failed to check that it was safe to do so. Equally, the person in the car behind could be to blame for not driving at a safe distance.

The issue with emergency stops is that the situations when they are required rarely leave you time to consider the options, and people usually act on instinct. If you have been involved in a collision caused by emergency stopping to avoid hitting an animal, your case will be considered on its own individual facts.

The Court will look at reasonableness; for example, was the animal large enough to cause damage to the vehicle or injury to its passengers?"

So no, legally, unless there is absolutely no chance of damage or injury to your car and passengers, and those around you, you shouldn't legally just perform an emergency stop.

Morally, most people try and avoid hitting anything. Even stupid pigeons. No-one drives at them with the intent of pigeon slaughter, but it's idiotic, dangerous and probably illegal to prioritise their well-being over that of everything else on the road.

There's a huge number of drivers out there who seem completely oblivious to the notion of safe stopping distances. I've had plenty of those coming up behind me, even when I'm driving at the speed limit.

I have no desire to risk being rear ended, and me / my passengers potentially injured, for the sake of a pigeon, cat, or other small animal, if I'm aware of a tailgater behind me.

I'd be very sorry about the devastation and ramifications caused to a family if I killed their pet cat, but I'd be even more sorry if one of the people in my car was injured or killed because I'd braked sharply and the tailgater behind had ploughed into my car. Knowing that the tailgater should have left a safe stopping distance would be no comfort at all in that scenario.

Nobody on this thread is saying that they go out of their way to run things over on the roads.

Some eminently sensible people though have got their heads screwed on the right way and realise that if slowing down/stopping is not an option due to the road conditions or the traffic behind you, it is a FAR better option to kill an animal than risk damage to people in your car, approaching cars or cars behind you.

Because people are more important than animals.

Well it's all very well saying what should happen. The person behind you should be able to stop. But the practical reality is not the same. In reality, if you grind to a halt on a dual carriageway, you'll probably kill someone.

I live down a country lane, single track, no street lights which when we moved in a few years ago you could have laid out in all day and not been run over. Over the years it has got busier at certain times of day. Cats kept in at those times. Neighbours noticed that those who were coming down the road seemed to be going very fast. A survey was done and the results were that although the speed limit is 30mph. Given the state of the road and the lack of passing spaces etc and not being able to see what was happening, who was backing out of their driveway etc More cars than not were doing nearer 60mph. Complete madness. The house at the T junction at the end has been ploughed into at least a dozen times. Residents have lost count of the amount of times cars and motorcycles end up in their garden.

Last year after the police refused to set up any mobile speed cameras we took to the street to ask drivers to slow down. We were met with abuse.

These car drivers are taking their children to school. We are in the holidays now and the road us quiet again.

As for someone throwing themselves infront of a car. I drive with caution knowing that someone might be behind a parked car or decide suddenly to step off the pavement. But there again I drive like an old granny.

LtEve I had a pigeon hit my windscreen too. Going round a tightish bend, so pretty slow luckily, high bushes either side, transit coming the other way.

It sort of rolled across the windscreen like a 70's cop in a flurry of grey feathers. Pretty scary, but no harm done.

The main road into town goes through an estate, so come this time of year you have to have your wits about you, and yes, become slightly immune to the fact that game will throw itself at you.

Should add we have had a 2 incidents of vehicles, one a van turn upside down on an empty road because they were going at such a speed when they clipped the embankments it sent the vehicle in the air and landing on the roof.

Why don't people check the rear view mirror regularly and if someone is not leaving a safe distance slow down before it gets to the stage that you are having to make a decision about who's life is worth more because one day someone might be making that decision about you or one of your loved ones.

I heard an interview with Alan Davies where he said pheasants used to run towards the car when they were filming Jonathan Creek on a large country estate because the gamekeepers take the feed out to the fields in their 4x4 and the birds associate engine noise with food. This has helped make sense of how many pheasants hurl themselves out of hedgerowsat the car now.

"ILikeyourHairyHands":

Just to say I have not read any more of your ugly posts. Ugh

This thread is quite bonkers.

The whole point of defensive driving is both to act as though the person behind you might not stop in time, and drive far enough away from the person in front that you could stop if they do an emergency stop. It's not like you have to pick one or the other!

ie, act to protect yourself from others' incompetence at all times. You can't assume that others will follow the rules, or that it will matter at all whose fault it is if you get injured , or dead.

Most of us try not to kill animals on the road but I eat meat. I'm not against kiling of course. I wear leather shoes.

The children will never let me forget the day I killed a squirrel on Easter Sunday whilst I was driving them to church (pure accident, normally the squirrels move away in time).

Alwyas better to kill a pigeon than kill your children by breaking sharply and a car comes into the back of you.

Many of us regularly eat pigeons of course; don't most mumsnetters?

I braked round a bend doing less than 10mph for a squirell in the Rd the guy behind me was wtf as he couldn't obviously see why I did it. I questioned myself the whole day but figure that at least I have quick reaction time as it could have easily been a dog or a person instead.

I have ran over a pigeon and seen it from far down the Rd but it just didn't fly away as expected,que a pop sound and a puff of feathers behind me, I felt sick and guilty for the rest of the day.

If it's safe to do so then I would brake or slow the car down in advance to give it a chance but I would hope I would never swerve an animal as it's beyond dangerous.

Some points to note:

• as has been put very well above your first priority is to people, then animals.
• when you are driving forwards, the air movement in front of your car actually helps push birds out of the way, you will often see them using it to avoid you... (doesn't work as well for horses, cows, grizzly bears!)
• you should always drive. To just your car, but in the context of what is going on around you, as well as allowing for the pigeon this should mean having an awareness of what might be behind you - they will be driving according to what they can see, and will probably a) not see the pigeon and b) not expect you to stop - so you are potentially creating the incident by acting in an unexpected manner; yes a car behind should be able to stop, but equally they are entitled to not expect you to make sudden moves which weren't anticipated...
• finally, pigeons are legally vermin (same as rats) so they wouldn't be high on a priority list to avoid, the collared doves locally are far more hassle...

I often slow down for pigeons but am usually swearing at the stupid bloody bird to get out of the way. I have been known to threaten the next stupid fucker that gets in my way, I get so sick of continuously having to avoid them. I think in the heat of the moment though, you'd instantly weigh up the car close behind you with the bird in front of you.

If you're going round a bend so fast that you can't help but hit whatever's on the other side then you're bloody lucky it wasn't a tractor. Whoever's dh that was, please remind him that in the countryside, where there's lots of pheasants there's probably a shoot, on a farm, with lots of big agricultural vehicles. I'd like to see him take on a tractor.

We get a lot of deer round here and there have been people killed hitting deer. A fully grown stag is like a pony and will write your car off. My dh though got hit by the deer. He slowed down because he could see a deer in the distance and one jumped out beside him and landed on his car. Deer bounded away so no idea if it was injured or not.

And as for blaming the car in front for an inappropriate emergency stop, what if it was a person? Surely the car behind hitting your car would be less injurious than your car hitting a pedestrian?

Deer don't throw themselves in from of a car like game do.

Of course it's different for a person! Geez!

Also a person would be seen a few cars behind, unlike a game bird.