Hitting animals with vehicle?

[Nismorphed]

Driving out to Sundre this morning and two birds hit the windshield of the larger truck I was driving. It got me thinking how many of you guys have been in a vehicle that has hit animals. If so, what animal and how much damage did it cause??

[BerserkerCatSplat]

I had (luckily) never, ever hit an animal of any kind, until I drove a stretch of the 501 that runs parallel to the border a few weeks back. Between Cardston and the #4 I smoked 7 gophers and a bird. You come up on a group of thirty gophers sunning themselves on the road and you just know not everybody's making it out alive. No damage, just had to hose off some gopher residue afterwards.

[HomespunLobster]

Three crows, two robins, an owl, 5 sparrows (found them in the rad and area) and about 50 of some random brown bird going down a dirt road. Was like tennis balls bouncing off my truck non stop.

Damage - Broken fog light cover, chipped windshield, blood.

I've come damn close to hitting around 4 moose, but somehow narrowly avoided those.

[Darell_n]

I've hit a mule deer, a cow moose laying down on the shoulder of the highway, licking salt, more birds and rodents than I can remember. The moose was decapitated by the front axle on the 3500 Dodge diesel I was driving and its head was lodged under the oil pan when I stopped at a gas station an hour later. Had one seagull smash in the grill of a van, ass first. Drove 2hrs to Brooks before stopping and finding it spread winged from headlight to headlight. That must have looked funny to others on the road.

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by Nismorphed
Driving out to Sundre this morning and two birds hit the windshield of the larger truck I was driving. It got me thinking how many of you guys have been in a vehicle that has hit animals. If so, what animal and how much damage did it cause??

Meh, revert to wind.

Not only will that take valuable land space, but will kill birds that our vital to human existence.

The green energy people are clueless in the way of reality.

Don't even get me started on the solar BS.

[rage2]

I hit a bird in my 944 going pretty quick, probably around 180-200 back in the day. Fucking thing vaporized. Cracked my windshield.

[Nismorphed]

Originally posted by Darell_n
I've hit a mule deer, a cow moose laying down on the shoulder of the highway, licking salt, more birds and rodents than I can remember. The moose was decapitated by the front axle on the 3500 Dodge diesel I was driving and its head was lodged under the oil pan when I stopped at a gas station an hour later. Had one seagull smash in the grill of a van, ass first. Drove 2hrs to Brooks before stopping and finding it spread winged from headlight to headlight. That must have looked funny to others on the road.

Any damage to axle or underneath ??

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by rage2
I hit a bird in my 944 going pretty quick, probably around 180-200 back in the day. Fucking thing vaporized. Cracked my windshield.

I happened to come across a similar thing, and it was in the back roads just North of Toronto where I let in loose in my new Suzuki Sprint.

Best car I ever owned. But whatever hit the windshield didn't think so.

[D'z Nutz]

The closest I've ever been to hitting an animal with a vehicle is running over a magpie on my bicycle on the way to work as it swooped in front of me.

It got up and flew off, but the crunch was like
https://media3.giphy.com/media/DBa308wq8XTMs/200.gif

[r3ccOs]

Hitting animals with vehicle?

I'm a pretty big fan

[Type_S1]

I was a passenger in a pilot that hit a large deer on highway 1 back in high school. It did a number on the front end with bumper, fender and hood damage. It looked like the pilot rear ended someone at a decent speed.

Out near Fairmont a buddy hit a moose in his civic on the way to meet a group of us and I am surprised he survived. It took part of the hoof off, windshield gone and front end destroyed. If I remember correctly even a tire was punctured losing air.

[Mixalot27]

Last summer a pheasant flew out of the ditch right in front of my car and I smoked it with my front grill. No damage to the car.

Years ago I hit an owl coming off of Bow Bottom trail onto Deerfoot South. My entire front windshield was shattered. I stopped and got out and the owl flew away before I could get to it.

Several times I've taken evasive action and missed hitting a deer by only a couple of feet.

[Darell_n]

Originally posted by Nismorphed


Any damage to axle or underneath ??

No damage. I was pulling a loaded 28ft horse trailer and it was 3ft in the air when it went over the moose. Saw sparks flying out when the trailer landed. (2am). Had the moose been standing it would have wrote off the truck. Come to think of it I was also a passenger that took the head off a buck on the highway and it dented in the passenger A-pillar. Left the head in the back of the truck.

[brucebanner]

Hit a deer once. Damage: hood, fender, door, headlight and bumper. Probably hit it at 100km/H

Also hit a porcupine and needed to replace the front bumper and one tire was punctured.

Both incidences happened in the same year to the same car. Back roads surrounding a small town.

[master hec0]

rode right over/through a dead deer on my motorcycle in Montana was doing around 60mph at the time, it was pitch black 2 of the 3 people in my group hit it. we all made it over unscathed just blood and fur on the bike.

[spikerS]

smoked a moose in a Kenworth with about 40k lbs on lumber on the flat deck behind me on Highway 22 by water valley.

After taking it through the truck wash to get rid of all the hair and guts, all I had to do was replace the cowling around the driver's side headlight, and use a chain and a telephone pole to pull out the bumper.

Although this moose gets take out by a cherokee and shrugs it off like a boss.
7fE0YhEFvx4

[GTR_Auto]

I have not hit anything but have a few stories

My brothers were driving late at night by Sundre. I was following. Brother hit a deer (car still drive able) we switch drivers 5 min later hit another lol. At that point had to tow the car back.

Cousin was following a truck. Truck hits a moose and the moose goes over the truck and lands on cousins hood / roof. Car was a write off

[A790]

I hit a deer 15km east of Thunder Bay. I was in a 1997 Ford Probe GT that was full of my worldy possessions (including Clever's sub :poosie: ) . I was moving to London for university.

Smoked it doing 110, easy. Thing clipped the front/right side of the fender. It flew off into the ditch and really mucked my car up. But, amazingly, I was able to drive the car all the way to Brampton.

New fender, headlight, wheel well, alignment, hood, bumper cover. Oops.

Gotta say, though: the car took that hit like a champ. Barely even fazed it. It looked like shit, but still drove well enough to go another several hundred kilometres lol.

[shakalaka]

Haven't hit anything so far thankfully and hopefully won't either. Have had a close call with deers twice and both times it was pitch black. Needless to say, swerved like a boss to avoid hitting them both times. :bigpimp:

Don't want to jinx myself though, so fingers crossed. lol

[AndyL]

Tons of light hits / no damage with deer, I plan to keep that horseshoe up my arse a while longer on that one... (Seriously its 30+ worst damage was a broken mirror)

Near miss with a moose. Flat spotted 4 tires to the point I limped into revelstoke and waited for a tire shop to open. Would have taken it dead center doing 120+ but I saw a flicker through some high beams...

Coyotes, more than a dozen. One might have been a fox. No real damage, one did leave me a tooth in a tire to remember him by.

Skunks are still the worst... They never "damage" anything, but I've sold 2 vehicles due to skunk spray... Never get that stench off...

[Dave P]

Rural Ontario
Hit a family dog.....in front of the family.........in the middle of there family reunion.

Dog jetted out from a ditch onto the highway chasing a rabbit. Nothing I could of done. The family were really apologetic even though I just smoked there dog. Felt awful.

Broken fog light and cracked bumper. Couldn't bring myself to ask for them to pay fo damages haha.

[nismodrifter]

Hit a deer. Very light front end damage. This was near highway 1, on the way home from Saskatoon. Other driver in front of me warned via flashing highbeams. There were ~8 deer crossing the highway that second. That stranger saved my life.

[bjstare]

Originally posted by Dave P
Rural Ontario
Hit a family dog.....in front of the family.........in the middle of there family reunion.

Dog jetted out from a ditch onto the highway chasing a rabbit. Nothing I could of done. The family were really apologetic even though I just smoked there dog. Felt awful.

Broken fog light and cracked bumper. Couldn't bring myself to ask for them to pay fo damages haha.

:( That's easily the worst one in the thread, that sucks man.

I've hit numerous gophers over the years. One rabbit when I was at UVIC. Not a huge jackrabbit like we have here, but a fluffy bunny. They were all over the place, ppl ran them over daily. It was so sad. haha

[Aleks]

Ran over a snake on my mountain bike once. Ran over a rabbit with my Cavalier back in the 90s. :cry:

[rage2]

Totally forgot about another bird incident. Years ago I was driving by the Arbour Lake farm in the M3 Cab with my ex, there's this hawk that's been hanging out by the farm there for years. We're driving by and see it flying around. She had a bird phobia and I was joking wouldn't it be funny if it came down at you? Damn hawk must've sensed the fear in her, and sure enough it swooped down, hit the top edge of the windshield, flipped onto her head, feathers flapping on both our faces as it tried to GTFO of the situation.

I couldn't stop laughing, she was hysterical. If she's reading this, I apologize for digging this up haha.

[HiTempguy1]

I hit the ass end of a mule deer on H2 once near Edmonton, and I was doing 120km/h with my 93 k1500. Those still had steel/chrome bumpers, musta had a sore ass for a week :rofl:

A couple years ago on my way to work, doing 70km/h in the city. A pidgeon out of nowhere flies in front of the (same truck). BOOM! Literally disappeared in a cloud of feathers. Facebook actually reminded me of it this week :rofl: I laughed so hard when it happened, but I'm an awful person :devil:

Considering I drive anywhere from 30k to 50k kms per year, with about 10k of that towing, I'm surprised I've never hit anything else. :eek:

[AndyL]

Originally posted by rage2
Totally forgot about another bird incident.

Damnit... I had put that out of my mind...

99ish, just inside Banff park gates at 230am +/-...

Cruising along... Poof no windshield - ruckus behind me...

Great horned owl (? It was a BIG f'ing owl!) - lesson of the decade, never roll up to the parks office with an endangered animal flapping around injured in your vehicle...

I was stuck there for like 6 hours doing paperwork. It was fan-fucking-tastic!

[spike98]

8 days ago I hit a deer on a highway in washington. $6k damage to bumper, fender, and door. The deer definitely did NOT make it.

Bambi shit all down the side of the truck. Goes in for repair on tuesday.

On a side note, i learned that you don't need to have a damage sticker if the accident happened out of province. Also washington's state police online reporting tool is amazing. Had a collision report in an hour.

[never]

I hit a deer with the CTS-V at about 60 km/h...hard on the brakes, shot the deer up and over the car. It got up and ran away after a while...even jumped over a pretty high fence. Couldn't drive the car because the heat exchanger and rad had lost all fluid. Total was about $12K damage.

About 6 months before that, my wife hit a deer in her GLK going about 100 km/h. Deer was dead, the GLK was drivable until we got it to the body shop, and it was about $10k of damage.

I think the Benz won for durability between the two.

[cet]

I hit a coyote years ago on Highway 1 just outside of Red Deer.

It was in the morning in winter so still dark out. I didn't see him unit he was crossing the median. I hit the breaks but couldn't do much. He kept coming in to the lane I was in then stopped in the middle of the lane and looked at the car just before I hit him. Felt the front tire go over him, then the back tire, started fishtailing then did a 360 on the highway. Managed to keep in on the road and running so when I was facing the right way again, put it back in to gear and made it to Red Deer.

He hit right in the middle of the car so destroyed the radiator, bumper cover and lower support.

[Skidro]

In my old xtrail I hit a deer going fairly fast. There were 4 on the road, I had to slam on the breaks but I hit the smallest one which still weighed about 100lbs I'm thinking. It pushed my rad towards my engine block, so much damage because everything was plastic.
I should have written that SUV off then. The deer flew almost 50 feet and its neck was twisted around. Must have died instantly

[4WARNED]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1
Considering I drive anywhere from 30k to 50k kms per year, with about 10k of that towing, I'm surprised I've never hit anything else. :eek:

Adam - you have enough towing stories to bring out the LOL's....they just don't involve animals.

[gogreen]

I clipped a deer in an '87 Grand Marquis at highway speed and came away with a broken passenger side signal light. Must have hurt the poor bugger because those lights have a sharp edge on the front, like so:

http://momentcar.com/images/mercury-grand-marquis-1987-4.jpg

That one only caused $20 damage because I was able to just go to the pick and pull yard and snag a replacement fairly easily.

[btimbit]

Timely thread, have a bird sticking out of my grill right now

[triplep]

I did one trip out to Regina, and destroyed at least 5 birds on that trip. The most memorable one from that trip was when there was a bunch of gulls eating something on the highway. I was going around 140-150 in an old accord. The birds felt that I was coming down and started to get out of the way. There was this one fat gull that just couldn't get any momentum going and was slowly flying away in the same direction that I was going. Needless to say, it didn't get enough altitude and it bounced off my front windshield and shot up into the air. I looked back into my rear view mirror and saw it ended up going like 30 ft into the air and then spiraled down into the middle of the highway. Luckily the windshield didn't crack or break.

On the same trip coming back to Calgary, we were driving at around 10 pm and it was pitch black, and I decided to move from the fast lane to the slow lane on the highway. Not less than a minute later all I saw in the fast lane was a deer head and blood splatter everywhere (a semi must have smoked it and destroyed the rest of the body). Luckily, I didn't run over it.