WDYD - roadkill

I am in the avoid crunching dead animals into the tarmac club too, although the pheasants round here seem to think their lemmings?.

I thought this was a thread about cooking roadkill, one of our neighbours brother collects it all and eats it, he even had a program on bbc2, the man is slightly mad though?

Were they altering the line of their driving so they could drive over the remains on the road?

Not as such, but they could have easily steered a little to the right and avoided it whilst still staying on their side of the road (plus, there wasn't any traffic coming the other way) Also, there was quite a bit of distance between their car and mine, so it wasn't as if they saw it at the last minute.

I hate driving over roadkill and often find myself thinking about dead things I've seen - does another rabbit miss that one that died? etc.

My OH told me I am mad.

The only positive thing I can think of is that they were wanting to make sure they were all absolutely dead and not suffering.

I'm in the avoid camp, and like MD, I worry that their little rabbit (or whatever) family is waiting for them somewhere and I get a bit upset.

You are the only other person I have heard say this! And I thought I was mad....................

I'd try and avoid a roadkill hump in the road but I can't say I'd change my path for flattened roadkill. It's dead, it's flat, another tyre isn't going to make much difference. ?

There's one particular road going out of Cheltenham that every time my H drives down it a flurry of pheasants and other game birds throw themselves at our wheels. I've never seen anything like it ? So far we've not hit any yet though.

I don't drive - and never clean the car! - but if you drive over lots of roadkill, don't you end up with two ton of diced dead animal in your wheelarches?

If I think about it, I generally just do what seems safest- driving over a big lump in the road could be dangerous but so could changing course/swerving. I don't find roadkill upsetting and I don't see anything wrong with driving over it (assuming you just mean not changing course rather than deliberately changing course to go over it).

I'd not realised you were a Cheltenham person (or if I had, I'd forgotten ? ) I'm in Pitville.

Which road is that with the pheasant activity? The road I tend to see most of the animal graveyard material on is the one which goes off the A40 towards Bourton on the Water and Stow and goes over the top of the hill.

This particular dead animal yesterday was definitely of the large hump variety - it had probably only been hit the once.

The most horrifying and upsetting roadkill I've seen happened when I was driving down the M1 on my way back from Newcastle upon Tyne. I was in the outside lane and there was a car in the middle lane and a young girl driving on the inside lane. There was some sort of game bird (nothing I recognised) with a brood of youngish chicks in front of all three of us walking from the inside to outside lane. I think we all braced ourselves because it was obvious one of us was going to hit them. The girl in the inside lane caught the mother bird under her front wheel and took out a couple of the babies leaving two or three others that turned and fled back into the side.

It was awful. The girl threw her hand to her mouth in horror and I burst into tears and pulled into the inside lane behind her for about 10 miles. There was nothing any of us could have done but I've never forgotten the incident which happened about three years ago. [:'(]

My step dad is a curator in natural history and used to run a small natural history centre, he was an absolute nightmare for collecting roadkill several years ago, his car absolutely stunk ? he only collected semi intact ones though for skulls/bones etc for showing/educating

You did at one point because we're trying to get a book club started - we must do that!

I'm hopeless at remembering roads but something going south to London - Cirencester rather than Gloucester, I think ?

I'd avoid a large hump because of the risk of accident or damage to car but I guess that's less of an issue in a large RR.

CBH - my mum and sister were in tears at a bus stop one day - the baby seagull playing in the road came a cropper under a bus wheel and went round, and round and round...?

That is so sad.

I remember seeing someone drive into a deer. The deer just ran out into the road, it was awful. It got back up again, and just about made it to safetly when another can coming in the opposite direction hit it and it was definitely dead after thay ?

Deer ?

I try to avoid it but some of the roads here are pretty narrow,so it could be dangerous to do so.

I killed a duck a few weeks ago i could not miss it,i was doing almost 50 with traffic behind me and a duck was in the middle of the road,i beeped the horn a few times hoping it would move,but it didnt.It hit my bumper and went under the car the range rover behind also hit it. I pulled over eventually and cried.

I have to drive through some minor country roads on the way to work, and occasionally run over something - I always do my best to avoid it, but sometimes it is unavoidable.

I haaaaate the sound of running something over - especially rabbits. The crunching noise that they make when you run over them makes me feel queasy. I would never deliberately seek to drive over something though, dead or not. It is gross.

Last year, when I was driving home a pheasant ran into the road, and I heard the crunching sound... I knew I had hit it, but the morning after, when I went out to the car, its body was hanging out of my front grill ? I had to drive to a country lane, and try to pull it out.... except when I pulled on it, its head came off in my hand! Cue me running around country lane totally freaked out - thank god no-one was passing at the time!

I drove around a dead badger one night a couple of years ago then, half a mile or so down the road, braked to avoid two badger cubs. The thought that they were out looking for their mother who was never coming back was most upsetting. I began to wonder 'are they old enough to survive by themselves?', 'will they be picked off by foxes?' and 'are they going to sit crying by the body and get squished themselves?' ?

The worst time was coming back from Stanstead at silly o'clock in the morning with my brother driving us both home in time for a wedding the next morning. We were about 40 minutes from home when we hit a fox - we had no option but to hit it because we couldn't move into the outside lane as someone decided to overtake us at that specific moment in time - he'd been tailgating us for a while so no surprise!

if you're mad then i am too - i hate driving over dead animals in the road and will aviod where possible. if i'm a passenger i have to shut my eyes if i can see something on the road ahead - i have been known to cry - H thinks i'm bonkers esp as he comes from the countryside. i do always worry there are some little fox or rabbit babies somewhere waiting for mum or dad to come home [:'(]

to get from my mums to mine involves driving a few about 10 miles through epping forest - its a long straight road with no street lights and v dark - i hate doing it at night as I am always worried something is going to jump out infront of me - i find myself looking for eyes shining in the undergrowth so that i can be prepared.

my mums OH on the other hand loves a bit of roadkill - i didn't believe him once when he said he had pikked up a dead deer off the road...... until i looked in the boot of the car!!!!

actually reading that bad i do sound a but mad!!

I do this too, its just horrible to think of their little rabbit (or whatever) babies sat at home waiting for their mum/dad to come home. Guess I must be mad also.

Budge along and make room for me on the mad bench then.

I will not drive over roadkill, no matter how squashed it is. Obviously if it was dangerous for me to move to avoid it, then i'd need ot go over it. However ive been driving for 8 years, and ive always managed to move away safely if i see something.

I hate seeing it, makes me feel sad, and i think its kinda disrespectful to just drive over it, i know that sounds silly.

I think that somewhere, its family will be missing it.

Mostly see small roadkill round these parts. Foxes, rabbit, hedgehogs, squirells and birds.

Last year while driving to work, i turned the corner and in front of me was a mummy fox, with its tiny tiny baby fox. i stopped the car (nothing behind me) and so did the driver on the other side of the road. We waited for the fox and its cub to cross. Eventually the mum picked the cub up, and carried it across, so so cute.

Also seen a pigeon killed my a bus. Made a horrible popping noise, yuck!

I always think of a group of baby bunnies waiting for mummy or daddy to come home too..It's the same when my cat kills a bird.

I would always avoid the animals no matter what it was or how flat it was.

Its one of my strange worries actually, running something over. I have no idea what I would do, drive off, see if I could stop and move to side of road and what if it was still alive? I would be mortified!