What would you do if you ran over something on the road?

@thea09 (18305)
Greece
August 31, 2009 9:11am CST
I've wondered about this one for a while now whilst dodging wandering goats on the mountain road, not to mention a few near misses. Presumabley the goat has value to someone so if I took it home to cook it could constitute stealing and it could take me days to find the shepherd to inform him. So what would you do if you ran over a goat, kangaroo, dog, cat, sheep, emu, pig, donkey, deer, grizzly bear, or anything else, on the road? Or even what have you done?
7 people like this
12 responses
@mentalward (14691)
• United States
31 Aug 09
I think I ran over a squirrel once while driving to work. I'm not sure, though. It was rush hour so traffic was heavy. A squirrel darted out into the road directly in front of my car and I had no chance at all of stopping unless I wanted to create a bad traffic accident. When I looked into my rear-view mirror, the squirrel was running around in tiny circles so I'm not sure if I ran over it's foot, it's tail, or just scared it silly. I couldn't stop because of traffic behind me and no place to pull over. The next day, I looked for a squashed squirrel in the road where it ran in front of my car and there was none. There really should have been one if I had run over part of it; other cars would definitely also have run over it unless it got out of the road quickly and the only way it could have gotten out of the road quickly is if I did not hurt it, or at least didn't hurt it too badly. I was VERY thankful that I didn't see any squashed squirrels in the road! Another time, I took my son out to buy him new shoes that he absolutely HAD to have for school the next day. (It was just a peer thing, not required by the school.) While driving back home from the shoe store (this was nighttime and very dark outside) on a relatively small, residential road in the middle of town, I hit a deer. I didn't know it was a deer at first. All I knew was that I heard a loud thump and my car jerked hard, then I saw something brown rolling up and over my car. I slammed on the brakes and screamed, "What was that???" My son, ever so calmly, said, "I think you just hit a deer, Mom." I pulled over to the side of the road and put my emergency flashers on. I jumped out of the car and looked back to see this poor deer (a 6-point buck!), flopping all over the road, scared out of his mind! His back was broken and his back legs were paralyzed. My first reaction was to stand in the middle of the road to stop traffic coming from either direction, which I did. I wanted only for the deer not to get hit again. It wasn't long before the police came. The deer managed to roll down a small hill and laid down beside a shed. The police officer went over to the deer and shot it in the head because there was nothing anyone could do for it. (I honestly wanted to take the buck home and try to make him better.) It was at that time that I went over to the front of my car to have a look. The deer damaged my left front quarter panel, grill, hood, windshield, running light and headlight! I was so angry that I asked the officer if I could have the deer. He said sure and he and another man put it into the trunk of my car. I took it home, cleaned and gutted it, chopped it up and put it in the freezer! I would have NEVER thought I could ever do anything like that before in my life but anger sure does make us do some strange things! It turned out that the deer caused over $2,000.00 worth of damage to my car and I had no insurance for deer damage. That venison was some really expensive meat!!! Anyway, that's what I did when I hit something in the road.
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
1 Sep 09
Hi mentalward, skunks! I didn't even realise a ground hog was actually a real thing. I enjoyed your talk of turtles but did you perhaps think that turtle was an Americanism for tortoise? We only have the latter and I believe some of them are quite old. I have two in my olive grove and they can make quite a racket when the grass is long but they are all just wild around here, not kept as pets as in some countries. Drivers always do slow down for them though to let them cross, if they can hit the brakes on time, anyway they seem to prefer to remain on country tracks rather than busy roads. I had no idea they could actually move at great speed until the day my son and I were out walking and came across two tortoises being rather intimate, the male finsished what he was doing then scarppered off at great speed, up hill to boot. Typical male some would say.
@mentalward (14691)
• United States
1 Sep 09
Groundhog Day - Punxutawney Phil is being held by the man on the left. His "house" is this tree stump, well fake tree stump. Groundhog Day is February 2nd, each year.
Hahahahaha! Yes, typical male! From what I understand, turtles and tortoises are different. Although they are the same species, they are different "breeds". I'm not sure of the correct word to use here. They're in the same family. Tortoises are quite large and do live quite a long life, whereas turtles are smaller and don't live as long. The turtles I have grow to about 12 to 14 inches in length (their shells). I think I read that they live about 20 to 25 years. Box turtles usually have a shell that only gets to be about 6 inches long. I've only seen pictures of tortoises, but I know that they get HUGE compared to turtles. I saw a sea turtle when I was in the Caribbean that had a shell about 25 inches long. Those water turtles sure can swim, too! I was surprised at just how fast they can get after seeing mine in the lake. If they get scared, they're gone in a flash! I think if I saw a tortoise in my yard, I'd faint! And, yep, groundhogs are real. We have one in the U.S. that we count on every February 2nd, also known as "Groundhog Day". He predicts whether Spring will come early or take it's usual time by whether or not he sees his shadow when he comes out of his little house. It's all ceremonial, but they do put on quite a show. The groundhog's name is Punxutawney (pronounced Punks-a-tawny) Phil. I've uploaded a picture of Punxutawney Phil here so you can see the real groundhog. He's being held by the man on the left side of the photo.
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
1 Sep 09
I have to say that the picture of the ground hog looks remarkably like what we would call a mole, it could be the same thing if it burrows holes in the ground and leaves a big heap of soil next to it known as mole hills. I think it must be the same thing. Believe me you wouldn't faint if you saw a tortoise, they are nice gentle creatures, well thought of, and they don't bother anyone. I'm not an animal person at all but I have no problem at all with tortoises although I do prefer them outside unlike the UK habit of keeping them indoors as pets.
• United Kingdom
31 Aug 09
Hi thea, thankfully I have never had that problem as I don't drive or at least I don't know how to drive, not yet! I'm sure that this would be quite a traumatic experience for anyone though. I am however a regular cyclist and sometimes I'm cycling on a towpath next to a river where I live and I do notice lots of snails on the path and it's really horrible. I cannot help but run over them accidentally at times and it really messes up my tyres! That's about the worst case scenario I have faced in relation to running over things! Andrew
2 people like this
@Capsicum (1444)
• United States
2 Sep 09
I hit a lab puppie one time,he ran right out in front of me.But it was the guys fault ,not on a chain and ran out in dark . He ran back to the house thought he was ok,but when I got to the door .I could see what had happened. The guy was cool because it was his fault.But boy did they tease me about it. And all I could do was cry more!
@Capsicum (1444)
• United States
3 Sep 09
Oh you and that hot tub What are you gonna do next week once it is drained ? Now the dog He did run right to his door but it was a flight responce,When knockiing on the door .I looked down to see a puddle of blood under the dog.The guy is the biggest a$$ ,I have ever met but did comfort me at the time for own his stupidity.
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
2 Sep 09
Hi Capsi, I'm not quite sure I'm with you on this one, you cried because you hit a dog through no fault of your own but the dog was healthy enough to gamble back home to it's thoughtless owner, so presumabley unhurt. You are now revealing an obviously sentimental side which may be better reserved for the hot tub I can't work out why you got teased about it though as it wasn't your fault
@taztheone (1721)
• India
31 Aug 09
To be frank, I have never ran over anything like that till now. Even if I came across such a situation, there is no way I'm going to stop the car & go after it. the reason for this is that I really cant see anything bleeding & I think there is nothing much I can do because I wont have any clue where the hospitals would be & I will be looking at it helplessly. Even though it might be a little harsh, but I think it's better for me to drive away & what happened is happened. If it would have been a human, the answer would have been different. Happy Lotting
@mrsctb7 (120)
• United States
1 Sep 09
I have run over "something". It happened when I was about 16 1/2 or so. I felt the thump, and didn't know what I had hit. So, I went back and checked to see what it was, praying it was not a puppy. I was quite relieved when I found the rat or possum. I can't really remember what it was, but I know it was something that didn't really touch my heart (like a puppy or kitten). Oh, the good old days of growing up in the country!
1 person likes this
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
6 Sep 09
I think hubby could be wrong as we definitely have pole cats out here but definitely do not have skunks, sorry. I don't know of any other country where skunks exist outside of the US but I do know we don't have them here. So that leaves me non the wiser as to what a possum actually is
@mrsctb7 (120)
• United States
6 Sep 09
No, it's not a pole cat. (I had to ask my husband that ...... He says a pole cat is a skunk.) Yes, I was pretty brave, but I also knew everyone in the area where I grew up, and one scream would bring tons of people to my aid! You see, I grew up in the country in Indiana, around 1965. But, yes, I think I was pretty brave for a 16-year-old!
@tomjoad (551)
• Philippines
1 Sep 09
hi thea! from where i came from we don't have any goats crossing the streets. what we usually have are chickens, cats, rats, frogs, and usually stray dogs. i'm not proud of it but when people here ran over something they just don't do anything. i've seen it once or twice when dogs are ran over and their insides are splatted all over the road. the driver doesn't even stop to inspect but he will just continue on his way. here we don't put too much value on animals' lives not like from other places i know of. here a road kill would just stay splattered on the road for days. people do not even pick them up nor throw them of the road or bury them. we have less concern for this kinds of things but that's our culture. can't really do anything about it except to accept it.
1 person likes this
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
1 Sep 09
Hi tomjoad, don't think I'd like to see rats crossing the road, yuck. We get the same thing with cat splatterings here, I always try to avoid driving through the mess when I pass them. They can be there for days and then not there, so don't know what happens to them or who takes them away. The only time I've ever seen a splattered cat cleaned up was when it was right outside a taverna doorway, so not exactly welcoming for people planning to eat there. There is also little regard for animals here, they are food and workers. I always worry about the goat situation though as it is an expensive piece of food.
@Sir_bobby88 (8231)
• Singapore
2 Sep 09
I will stop and have a look , if can report to the relevant department about the accident .
@stvasile (7306)
• Romania
1 Sep 09
I don't have a car and I don't know how to drive, so I really can't say what I'll really do if something like that happens. I've been in a situation once when the car I was in hit a dog. The dog jumped on the road (I don't know what scared him) and it got hit by the car's door. The dog got up and walked away, but it got a serious hit. It didn't feel very good to hit the animal, but even if we would have killed it, I don't think we would have stopped. I don't want to seem cold-hearted, but what else can you do once you run over an animal and kill it? If it belongs to someone, the owner should take better care of it. And there are greater chances for the owner to find its animal (it is reasonable to presume he know where his animal wonders about) than for you to find the owner... Lately I was in someone's car for longer trips and at one time she turned around the car and went back a little. I didn't understand at first, but later I found out she always does that when she feels the car might have hit something. She did that quite a few times, and we've never seen any road kill (she just drove through small water pools and stuff like that). She seemed very determined to take the animals to a vet, if she'd hit any, even if most of the time we were in the middle of nowhere...
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
1 Sep 09
Hi stvasile, your last bit really made me laugh, sounds like your friend could have wanted an excuse to meet the vet perchance. I wouldn't drive back and forth over puddles looking for some likely hit as the chances are I might not have run over the snake properly and it might be feeling a bit angry. Here there isn't sentiment over animals, they are used for work or for food and I rather share that view.
1 person likes this
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
1 Sep 09
Thank goodness, i have never run over anything but once in my life & that has been 40 years ago i hit a dog. It was horrible & i hope i never have that experience again.
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
1 Sep 09
Thanks DEar, I don't blame u for running over snakes. I would to if i was to see one.
1 person likes this
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
1 Sep 09
Hello Aunty, sorry you had a horrid experience with a dog. So far I've only run over snakes but I must admit to aiming the car slightly.
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@hsofyan (3446)
• Jakarta, Indonesia
31 Aug 09
Let it go and kept running, according to plan.
• Canada
1 Sep 09
I'd probably want to save the animal if it was still alive. I don't like killing animals by any means by that I mean accident or otherwise. I'd probably take it to the nearest vet and try to save it.
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
1 Sep 09
Hi doglady, you're obviously showing a kinder side than I would, can't see myself hurling injured probably smelly goat into the car, drive back the hour to town and find a vet in siesta hour who wants to look after it out of the goodness of his heart. Over here people just aren't sentimental about animals at all and the vets must be rubbing their hands with glee at all the euros they are earning from the English who move here and insist on treating every cat on the road as a pet
@kitty42 (3923)
• United States
31 Aug 09
Hello my friend Thank goodness this has never happened to me, and if it did I would be so scared, what can I do, I would not touch the animal thats for sure, do I wait for someone to stop and we? what do you do when things like this happen, call 911? I would assume you should move the animal so other cars can pass, since I can't touch them I should wait for someone else to move them for me, hmmmm, would someone actually do that for me?, wow I just hope this never happens to me