You are driving down the road at 70 mph and a small animal, say a cat or a dog, runs out in front of you.

Do you swerve to try to miss him or do you drive straight ahead without swerving and let him take his chances?

How about if you are doing 40? Or 20?

For me, I'll usually swerve at 20. I may swerve at 40. And I won't swerve at all at 70.

Drive straight through, strict Darwinism.

At 70, if not being tail-gated, would cut speed as best possible without slamming breaks and swerve. That prevents loss of control. Tapping the horn would be worth a try.

At 40, same, maybe even hit the brakes depending on risk. At 20, definitely stop or go as slow as needed. Especially wouldn't hit a dog and a cat's fast enough if warned.

no swerving. if i run it over then that was the animals fate. it is much safer to not swerve regardless of the situation.

I had a wreck once when I swerved to avoid a dog at 20 mph.

But I was on a motorcycle on a gravel road. If I had hit the dog, I would have likely had a wreck anyway.

When I was a kid, one of our neighbors who lived about 5 miles away (around here, anyone who has lived within 5 miles for a number of years is definitely considered to be a neighbor) had a dog that liked to chase cars while they slowed down for a 40 mph corner. One afternoon, I came driving by in an old farm pickup (with no brakes) and he ran out in front of me. I thought I'd killed the dog. It turned out that it lived, but broke a couple of legs. It sure cured him of chasing cars -- I never saw him on the highway again.

Do you mean what do I choose to do right now, while I'm sitting in front of my keyboard? Or what will I ACTUALLY do when confronted with the split second decision? Probably two different things. Here are all my vehicle/animal interactions:

Junior in high school, new driver. Was driving down a windy road with cars parallel parked on both sides. A small dog darts from between two of the parked cars JUST before disappearing from view under my hood. Humanly impossible to brake that fast. But I tried. Locked them up. Both wheels hit the poor dog. The lady who was walking the dog came up to me very apologetically "he NEVER runs off like that!" The dog was shaking and twitching. We put him in my car and drove him to my vet. DOA. The twitching was just nerve activity. I took the lady home feeling like CRAP! I wasn't speeding, and she reassured me that she didn't hold me responsible, she should have had him on a leash, etc. But still... the worst thing was, she had her young son (3 or 4) with her. Although I felt horrible, I had to stifle a laugh when, on the way back to their house, she told her son "see what happens if you don't look both ways?!"

The following year, when I was a senior, I was driving thru Waller on Hwy 6 en route to A&M for college visitation. A dog ran across the hwy and again, I slammed on the brakes. The dog got away unscathed, but the car behind me got rear-ended by a trailor-less semi-rig. The car would have then rear-ended me, had I not seen it lurch at me in the rear view and floored the accelerator. (The dog was gone by then.) I probably should have stopped for the police report, but I didn't know how long it would take and I guess I was a little afraid I might get in trouble...

Another time, a well-camoflauged deer jumped in front of me while I was going about 60 down a farm road. I braked (hard, but not hard enough to lock them up) and held the wheel straight. Hit the deer, who fell down and skidded across the road. I came to a stop and got out in time to see teh deer get up and run on. Compressed the gas cylinders on my front bumper (permanently) by about half an inch. Bet it ruined that deer's day, if it even survived the trauma.

depending on the size of the animal would determine if i swerve or not

big animals tend to roll up on car windshields, and that can be very dangerous.

i have ran over plenty of squirrels though. they aren't worth even deviating for

I was going down a narrow highway at 70 awhile back and a dog ran out infront of me. I swerved but I had to. A dog that size would have ruined my front end. Also I had jsut bought new Z rated tired that I knew would hold.

No swerve. If I'm going 70 then the likelyhood that I'd be able to successfully swerve it very little. Plus, my life is worth more than that of a dogs or cats. I hate to say it and I know that it will piss some people off, but that's the truth. I would rather not it them, but if it comes down to it, I'd rather hit them. My parents have even told me that if something like that happens to go right through it and not worry about the car, they'd much rather repair my car then have to go through the rest of their lives without their only daughter.

I would say no swerving, but I think sometimes we do things out of reaction. ...if I saw an animal out on the road, my first reaction just may very well be to "swerve." It obviously is going to depend on when this animal jumps, walks, prances in the road.

Just FYI

If I ever see anyone (Ags included) hit an animal and keep going, I'll do my best to get your License plate info. I'm pretty sure that domestic pets are part of the no hit-and-run thing....

i was doing about 80 on highway 6 at about 3 am coming back from Waco and a dog ran out in front of me...pure reaction was to swerve...missed the dog, corrected/slide the rear end back around parallel with the road and kept going. Had I been in most other vehicles swerving would have probably caused me to wreck.

even if it was a dog or cat, i'd keep goin, unless something was wrong with my car.

gotta get the stink off my car

Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to say I'd swerve. I don't want to cause a wreck and I really don't want to wind up hurt, but as fast as things can jump out, I'd hate to find out it was something else. My mom was coming home one night and was driving in our neighborhood, and she ran over something. She couldn't tell because it was so dark, but she couldn't sleep at all that night. ...just because she figured it was a cat, but she felt too bad to actually look. My dad and I went and it was an armadillo, so my mom was relieved to know it wasn’t someone’s pet. Don’t get me wrong, she still felt bad because she killed something, but not “as bad.” Anyways, I’d still swerve if something just “popped out” …just out of fear of killing anything.
I remember on the way home, my friend and I had this conversation and he said, “well better an animal than you right?” …and I agree, but I don’t think my first reaction would be to “run over it.”

On the occasions when I've run over a cat or dog, I never stopped. The only time I ever stopped was the time on my motorcycle when I swerved in the gravel and wiped out.

What are you going to do if you stop?

Pick the cat or dog up and take it to the vet? You're likely to be bit no matter how tame it is. That's just a natural reaction.

Take it to the vet? Will the vets take the dog in without a promise by you to pay for the treatment? You got another thing coming if you think I'm going to pay vet bills on someone's pet because they were stupid enough to let it play in the street.

eric-

Actually, two of our dogs are "rescues" that were brought into the vet office where my wife worked and abandoned. If you don't think you have a responsibility to an animal that doesn't understand what your car is and that it's dangerous, you shouldn't be driving....

From my point of view, the last thing I want to do is to grab a strange animal that is in pain. It is more likely to snap out at anyone trying to help.

If I know the dog's owner, I may try to find him to let him know about it and let him take it to the vet.

Furthermore, I don't have responsibility to a dog who's owner allows it to run across the road in front of me. It's the owner who has the responsibility.

I don't think that you should necessarily try to grab the animal. You're right; it's going to try to bite you. All the same, driving a vehicle gives you a responsibility to watch for anything that might try to cross your path.

It's true that you have a responsibility to watch.

But that does't mean you become responsible for animals that run out in front of you whether it is a pet or not. The responsibility is solely that of the pet owners to control their pets.

gun it

i lost some friends b/c they swerved

Hitting a dog would make me cry

anything else is toast.

lol, I was just now talking to someone on the phone and suddenly "OH eff! I just hit a deer..did I kill it? Oh yeah, that hit the grill..oh that is all sorts of dead. Okay moving on, how was swimming today?"

Since I am normally very aware of where traffic is around me, I would do whatever I could to avoid the animal, whether it is swerving or breaking, cat, dog, squirrel or deer.

I drive a truck, so I'm not terribly worried about anything but hitting a deer at 80. And I probably wouldn't even think about stopping for any animal I hit unless I recognize it as the pet of someone I know. It's an animal, not a person, and I don't carry a pistol to put it out of its misery, so what am I gonna do?

Your definition of small is different than mine. As someone above said, if it's actually small (cat, rabbit, squirrel) then it's going to get hit.

If it's something larger I'd either swerve or hit the breaks, or both depending on traffic. For my safety as much as the animals.

[This message has been edited by AgentZero (edited 2/7/2012 11:03am).]

Animals I've hit...

A buzzard... with a car windshield.

Several (many actually) deer with a truck.

Cattle (a group of cows and calves) with a truck.

Many dillos, coons & possums (on purpose) with 4 wheels. They must die.

Snakes, turtles, birds, other lower life forms.

Going 70 or more- tap brakes and attempt a nascar evasive maneuver.
40-if it's a dog swerve, if it's a cat aim small miss small
20-don't know if you can "swerve" only going 20 so i'd turn quickly and avoid a pooch. But if it's a cat I'd gun it...Especially if it had a sign that said "I haz cheezburger?"

I'm not endangering my life for a damn dog or a cat.

hth

quote:

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Since I am normally very aware of where traffic is around me, I would do whatever I could to avoid the animal, whether it is swerving or breaking, cat, dog, squirrel or deer.

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If I remember correctly, someone died swerving to hit a dog a mile or two north of Perryton in the early to mid 90s.

Money talk... Yeeooo!

I hope that you people that worry about squirles and rats and swerve to avoid them crash

i feel like i'm in a time machine

never swerve

my Olds was known as the squirrel killer in my old 'hood...

no, I don't care how effin cute theyn are. they are just rats in better fur coats

Never swerve..... I think of it as bowling