What is your roadkill count?

One bird. I am a very careful driver, but that stupid bird was suicidal, I’m convinced. He flew straight into my windshield on the freeway. I was so hysterical I had to pull over and call my mother, sobbing.

I had a shit hawk fly right under my car….I was only driving 60km/h but there was nothing I could do… that would be a shitty way to die
and a suicidal squirrel that ran onto the HWY at rush hour…. at least he didn’t suffer

and almost a deer.. walking down the side of the HWY (looked like a person until I got close) so I slowed down, as soon as I got within 10 feet it turned left directly in front of my car but I was expecting that

I ran over a baby rabbit one summer afternoon. It was the first animal I had killed. I was only 16 and on my way back from my summer volunteer job working at a veteranarian’s office. I picked it up and laid it in the floorboard of my father’s new Monte Carlo I was driving. He sorta freaked when he saw me crying and snotting and then got more upset when he saw the bloody little bunnie in his new car. My brother buried the dead rabbit for me.

I’ve been a llicensed driver for nearly 34 years. The only other animals I have struck with a vehicle were a mommy cat, a deer, a dog and countless butterflies and insects. It didn’t kill the dog. I was driving about 5 mph in our neighborhood and he ran into my tire while chasing after my car. He was just stunned.

The deer, a doe actually, leapt into my path at about 4 a.m. one morning from total darkness. I stopped and the poor deer was thrashing on the side of the road. It was, and still is a horrific memory. The deer finally stood and ran.

To this day, I like to think the deer llived, but others have told me she probably didn’t. They tell me it was a surge of adrenaline that made her get up and run. The poor kitty ran into my path in the dead of night and I laid her body at the door of a business with a note. It hurts me to this day to think about that cat. When I picked up her still-warm lifeless body, it was obvious she had kittens. It breaks my heart to this day and it’s been 32 years.

There is road kill here all the time. Over the years I had two deer run out from the woods and into my car’s path as I drove on the highway. The first one dented the rear door. The second one was cut in half – one part bounced under the car, the other smeared up over the hood and windshield. The woman in the car behind me crazy. When I opened the hood there were blobs of fat, hair and other bits in the engine compartment. Gag.

Also I had a bird fly into my car antenna and snap it off. There was a thud, a puff of feathers and my radio turned off.

We learned to ignore the instinct to swerve. You might drive into oncoming traffic or go off the road.

I haven’t killed yet. And I don’t plan on buying a car.
All hail your lord and master.

I’ve only been driving 9 years, but I’ve managed to kill a rabbit.
I wasn’t driving too fast, but the damn thing decided to rush out of a bush and across the road right in my path. It broke my exhaust.
I must own up to being a bit of a wuss about it all – it made me cry, so I had to pull over for a bit.

About three I believe. A pheasant and two rabbits. It’s a horrible feeling when it happens.

None, but I don’t think it is skill so much as luck. I would have such a horror of doing it. I don’t think I could stop myself from swerving.

Mine is quite high I live in lowland rural England where encounters with nature are inevitable.
Rabbits = numerous (used to stop and pick them up when I had a Ferret)
Pigeons = numerous (they usually go up in an explosion of feathers)
Small birds = a few (in fact around here they’re known as suicidal as they dart across the road in Spring)
Pheasants = a couple (on took my front left fog light out in revenge)
Ducks = two memorable occurrences both times I ended taking four out in one go, firstly I was only young in my Beetle driving past a village pond and the decided to cross the main road, secondly I was driving down a narrow road between two rivers and they came out to cross right in front of me, no avoiding that one I’m afraid)
Cats = one memorable one (same narrow road as the ducks, came running out didn’t know what the thump under my car was until I looked in the mirror and saw it jump six feet in the air and hit the front grill of the Range Rover behind me)

I had a bird fly in my driver’s side window and kill itself on the back windshield of my car.I have hit and killed a squirrel.I also hit a pheasant.It wasn’t pleasant.

Ah! Great minds…
I was literally JUST about to ask this question!
I ran over a rabbit last night. It was the very first animal I have ever hit with my car (in over 12 years of driving!).
I felt, and still feel, terrible. I made my husband leave the house, in pitch black, to drive down the road and make sure it wasn’t still alive and suffering.

@jenandcolin – Did your husband find it?

No- he said it wasn’t there. He told me it probably limped off the road due to postmortem muscle twitches. Obviously, I don’t believe that. I am pretty sure it limped off the road, in pain, and went into the woods (we live in the woods). He just told me that so I would stop crying, I am sure…

Although, I appreciate the creativity of his answer and willingness to appease me. He’s very sweet…

Dozens of birds and as small as they are, they still do make a mess and can be a pain picking them out of the grill. I got sloppy seconds once of a deer the car ahead of me took out…that was very gross and messy. And my first road kill was a raccoon and was pretty shocked by how loud the thumping and bumping was under the car. I felt really bad for the critter.

If you have to cover a lot of ground in a rural area you’re going to get some wildlife. It’s not pleasant (I hit a pheasant. It wasn’t pleasant LMAO). I’ve got one deer, rabbits, woodchucks, a dog, squirrels, chipmonks, and too many birds to count.

1 small bird
1 squirrel
1 skunk
1 deer that ran into me and ran off, hopefully uninjured

and, sadly, I ran over my own goose in my driveway a few years ago.
Poor little Maybelline, napping under my car and I didn’t see her, apparently backed over her. Tragic!

Not too bad for living in a major wildlife zone for the past 19 years! ;-)

1 and a half birds. One bird I knew for sure I had annihilated, the other bounced off the bumper and flew up over the car. Don’t know what happened to it after that, but I’m sure it hurt.

One, a cat.

I hit a raccoon once. I was in high school, and we lived in a rural area. I was driving home from work one night after dark, came around a curve, and got just a glimpse of the poor little guy as he ran from the bushes at the edge of the road, right in front of my car. There wasn’t even time to swerve. :( I felt so bad, I couldn’t help crying when I got home and told my parents about it. Then I had to drive past its little corpse on my way to and from school for the next several days. Ugh.

So, one fatality in 20 years of driving. That’s not too bad. I agree with @marinelife : it has more to do with luck than skill. Geography and time of day also play a part, since most animals that get run over tend to be active at night when they are harder to see.

I’ve hit several animals throughout the years. Several coons, opossums, armadillos (if you have a tall vehicle and straddle them, they’ll actually jump into the underside of your vehicle), cats, one dog and one deer that didn’t die.

I hit the deer when I was in my junior year of high school. I worked about 15 minutes from folks house which is in a pretty rural area. I had a pulled muscle in my neck/back and managed to talk my boss into letting me go home early, at around 9pm instead of the normal 12am because of it. I was driving home and saw a big doe crossing the street with her head down. It hurt to move and I was driving a ‘95 F-150 with a standard transmission and a big steel bumper I put on it. Although I let off the accelerator, I decided that it was going to cause me more pain to try and avoid her so if she didn’t move, she was going to get hit. She was busy checking out the road and and wasn’t paying any attention to me. My bumper nailed her right in the head at about 45mph. I looked in my rearview and saw her on the ground but she quickly jumped up and ran off.

The most gruesome was when I decapitated a cat. I had a white tC at the time which cause me lots of problems because I couldn’t seem to go anywhere in it under 80mph. If I was going somewhere in that car, I was flying. It eventually cost me my license, but that’s a different story. Anyway, I was leaving the liquor store and headed to a party with a car load of people flying down the highway. My tC was really low so I usually tried to avoid hitting things in it but this cat sprinted out in front of me so fast that I didn’t have time to react. Because of my excessive speed, my bumper cut the cats head off and it went flying over my car leaving a blood trail. My friend in the front screamed out that I decapitated it and the two girls that were with me started crying. I had to stop my a car wash before we made it to the party. It was gruesome.

@Randy

Hope you’re learning to slow down these days kiddo. ;-)

@Coloma Yes ma’am. The DMV wanted to make sure I realized that driving is a privilege and not a right. Losing my license for a year and the massive amount I ending up spending in fines ensured that I learned to take my time behind the wheel.

I’ve afixed what basically amounts to a mounted dog whistle on the front of my car, which is supposed to warn deer and other animals of the approaching car. Seems to work most of the time, since I don’t think I’ve hit anything.

do people count as roadkill?

@coffeenut If you bag one with the car it counts. I was almost roadkill once.

I once came around a curve on a mountain road and there was huge black cow /bull (?) standing on the inside edge, half blocking the road!
It was a miracle I didn’t hit that monster at about 35–40 mph. !

I called the Sheriff and had the cow whisperers sent out before anyone got killed, or..killed the cow.

The worst by far was a golden retriever. I was behind a school bus (filled with kids, of course) going about 35 mph. Suddenly, the school bus slammed on the brakes, but didn’t extend it’s stop sign or indicate that it was stopping. I switched lanes to pass it, and just as I pulled even with it, the dog stepped into my lane. There was no way to miss it, and I slammed into it at nearly full speed. It flew into a ditch, and I pulled over and got out of my car. I had to wait as the bus passed by; every window filled with the face of a horrified child.

@Randy My point exactly…...slower speed gives more time to react even if you were not pating full attention. One of the reason why I have 4 near misses and no KIAs.

One blackbird, which flew into the front wheel of my bicycle when I was about 16.

One deer, which I felt bad about. She ran out in front of me before I had any chance to stop. About $800 in damage to the car and because of how I hit her and how small she was, we didn’t even get venison out of it. Other than that, multiple possums and a couple of raccoons. We live in the country, so it’s hard to not get them.

Lets see where we stand, out of about 18 Jellies you have scored
• Two dozen plus birds.
• One hawk
• 4 squirrels +/-
• Eight + rabbits
• Six + cats (poor feline friends)
• Seven deers.
• Three dogs.
• Five pheasants.
• Three ducks
• Six raccoons
• Two woodchucks +/-
• Two chipmunks +/-
• Two possums +/-
• Two armadillos +/-

Not represented

• Alligators
• Bison.
• Bears.
• Seals.
• Pythons
• Cows.
• Horses

(Guess those were the lucky ones)

We have nearly all the barnyard and then some here except 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. :-D

@Hypocrisy_Central

You forgot my skunk and goose! lol

@Coloma D’oh!!!! That dang skoose! (skunk+goose)

@Hypocrisy_Central
LOL

@Coloma I guess if you are a rabbit, deer or cat you best stay away from US and UK drivers :-)

@Hypocrisy_Central

Yes, and, I forgot to mention the bicyclist that ran into ME and flipped over my car!
Thank God he was uninjured, I almost had a heart attack!

I was pulling out between parked cars, had looked back & forth about 12 times and as soon as I went this guy just comes out of nowhere at about 30mph on his racing bike and slams into the side of my car, flips over the hood, it was like a movie scene!

I gave him $100 towards a new bike and was so grateful he was not hurt!

Anyone ever plow down a reindeer?

1 deer, 1 raccon, 1 possum, several rabbits and squirrels, 3 pheasant, 1 canada goose.

I have also worked a couple of nasty moose/vehicle and one horse/vehicle accidents.

I got Bambi one time. I went around a dead deer in the road, and a Fawn came flying out of the bushes. I never even had time to lift. She hit on my bumper, and was killed instantly. That sucked.

@Adirondackwannabe She hit on my bumper, and was killed instantly. That sucked.
Why? Toss it on the hood, take if home and clean it, you have free venison.

How high is your bumper? It was a very small fawn, hardly any useable meat.