(Please Note: This article is for entertainment purposes only)
I live in a rural area, in the mountains of Arizona, and one
thing that is a constant here, along with cold winters, are animals. Animal
crossing signs are as ubiquitous here as street lights would be in any big
city. The problem can be as small as a couple of animals walking along the side
of the road inside the town limits, or much larger. A good example of larger was
when some friends and I were coming back from Flagstaff, on a well-travelled
back road in April of 2016. We had only been outside of Flagstaff for about a
half hour at around 5 or 6 in the evening, when animals started to be seen on
both sides of the road. And by animals I don’t mean squirrels or rabbits. I
mean 500 to 800 pound elk, like the example in the top picture. I instantly
slowed down, but the constant sight, mile after mile of animal silhouettes and
pairs of eyes glowing on either side of the road is still the most terrifying
thing I’ve ever been through while driving. Before it was done, we had driven
through an elk herd that was thirty to fifty miles long. Had one of them
decided to spook and bolt in to the road, they would have easily flattened the
SUV we were in. How you decide whether to hit the animal, or avoid it, is the
subject of today’s article.
As you might know if you are a veteran reader of this blog,
I used to be a test driver for GM at their proving grounds in Mesa, Arizona.
During driver training, we were told one thing when it came to animals: if one
got in your way...hit it. Don’t avoid it, don’t swerve, don’t try and protect
it. Send it to the next life. Why would the instructor tell us that? It’s
because you are likely to do less damage to yourself by hitting the animal,
then you are by swerving to avoid it. If you hit the animal, you kill the
animal, and maybe destroy the front of your car, but if everyone in the car is
seatbelted properly, and the air bags work, the injuries to the people inside
will be minor. If you swerve to avoid the animal, you risk losing control of
the car, which means that maybe you roll the car, or maybe you end up out of
control, hitting the side or the rear of the car, potentially causing much more
damage to the people inside. He was right for the most part, as we will begin
discussing now.
The first step that any driver needs to take when in country
that animals live or cross close by, is to not ignore the animal crossing
signs, and keep your speed at the limit, or even below if it’s dark. This will
give you the greatest chance to avoid contact with the animal, because if you
are going slowly, or relatively slowly, you’ll have more time, and less speed
to scrub off if you can take evasive action because of the animal. So the first
step is to slow down inside animal crossing zones. And yes, some of these
zones, like the ones by my house, can be up to twenty miles long. That will mean going a long time at the speed limit or lower. But I
think you’ll agree that a longer trip is worth it if it means getting to where
you are going alive.
The next step is to turn your focus all the way up when in
these zones. Don’t get complacent, don’t turn your favorite music up, slouch in
the driver’s seat, and pretend that you are on the freeway. You need to be
intensely focused not only on the road, but on the roadsides as well,
especially if you are driving through valleys or places where an animal could
easily get on to the road from the area next to it. You must treat these areas
like people are told to treat guns. Just as a gun is to be treated as if it is
always loaded, an animal crossing zone needs to be treated as if it isn’t a
matter of if an animal crosses, but when the animal crosses, and you as a
driver need to have that kind of awareness to survive.
Now to the crux of the matter. Should you follow the GM
driving instructor’s advice, and always hit the animal, or are there times
where trying to avoid it would be OK? This is all going to depend on the road
conditions, and your speed. If you are going pretty fast, and an elk or a deer
dart out in front of you, you have to be able to figure out what would be more
dangerous: you hitting the animal, or you losing control because you swerved
out of the way to avoid the animal. In this case, it’s not even close. If you
are going fast, and the animal comes out quickly…hit it. It is the safest thing
for you, because it is the only solution that limits the danger to you. If you
swerve at high speeds, especially if it’s dark, your chances of skidding and
losing control are huge. This could mean much more dangerous situations than
hitting an animal.
Other things that need to be taken in to account are how
wide the road is, whether it’s dry or not, whether or not there’s traffic
coming towards you and behind you, and if the animal is moving. If you are in a situation where you are on a
tight two lane road with traffic, and an animal comes out, you can try to steer
around him but only slightly. If he is taking up most of the road, hit him.
Hitting the animal is much safer for you. Of course, this assumes that you are
going at a speed that is too high to be able to stop in time after you see the
animal. Of course, not hitting the animal is always best, and I do advise that
whenever possible. But if the road is too narrow, and you don’t have enough
time, hitting the animal is the best bet.
Now in the last paragraph, I did mention steering slightly
to try and miss the animal. Some animals, like deer, will freeze when hit with
a bright light. If a deer does that and freezes in the middle of the road, and
the deer is far enough away and you are going at a slow enough speed that you
see that you can safely steer around the deer to the right, with road
conditions that allow that to be done safely, do it. Then if it’s safe, get out
and try and shoo the deer off of the road so that it’s not a menace to anyone
else. (A quick tip I read is that flashing your high beams at the deer a few
times sometimes works to wake the deer up and get it to move again.) Notice
though, in this scenario, the deer was far enough in the road where a driver
could steer around it, the driver noticed it far enough ahead to take avoiding
action, and the driver was going at a slow enough speed to take that action.
That is why steering around it can be possibly advised in this case. But again,
if the animal comes out of nowhere, and you are at a high rate of speed, you
have no choice but to hit it.
I am an English teacher, and on an interesting note, this
subject has been tackled by poetry. The poem is travelling through the Dark, by
William Stafford (found on the Poetry Foundation’s site):
Traveling through the Dark
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then
pushed her over the edge into the river.
Now apart from being an English teacher, and someone who
loves poetry, why did I include this poem here? Simply because this person has
the right mindset, and acts properly in the face of this situation. First off,
the person recognizes the danger of swerving around something on the road, and
how that could lead to a loss of control, and a worse accident. Next the person
sees the danger of the dead animal, and that someone could swerve to avoid it,
and get in to an accident because of the dead deer. Lastly, the person takes
action when and where they can, and they roll the deer in to the river, taking
care of the danger.
We coexist with animals on this planet, and even though we
have become nice and comfy in our wooden and concrete cocoons, the animals are
out there, and it helps to realize that we are on their turf when we are
driving though an animal crossing, not the other way around.
Remember, the golden rule when it comes to dealing with
animal strikes is that it’s better to hit the animal than to try and swerve
around it and lose control of the car. But if the animal is far enough ahead,
and you are going slowly enough, with enough room, you could potentially avoid
the animal. But you must take in to account traffic and the road conditions
before you make the decision. What’s most important is to always stay focused
while driving in animal crossing country, and not take the signs or the
warnings lightly. Do this, and your chances of an animal strike go down
significantly. Until next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment