Roadkill - To brake or Not to break

Supercell

Was going into work the other day and saw a cat up ahead wandering alongside the road, I thought ..don't do it moggy..but it did..

There was traffic on the other side of the road so swerving to avoid it would have lead to certain head on crash, there was traffic behind me, sudden braking might have lead to me being rear ended, so I just choose to keep going..horrible noise later..one ran over cat behind on the road (not dead..was jerking around horribly but certainly about to die after being ran right over)..i kept driving trying to not to get overly upset..

In retrospect i could have blown the horn or braked like crazy..after all if a car rear ends me its their fault for not keeping in braking distance, as a learner, i'm not sure that braking suddenly would have been wise on a busy road, which was why I kept going.

Would any of you have done differently, or was running over the cat the right thing to do in such a situation ?

Lafortezza

Don't swerve, apply brakes but not enough to get rear-ended, maybe blow the horn. If that doesn't work then byebye kitty.

Del2005

All depends how big the animal is. Don't swerve is the first rule, but if it was a big dog and it would damage my car I brake and let the person behind pay for the damage, cause they shouldn't drive too close. But if it was only small I'd try and slow down and avoid it but not too so much as to hit another car/person.

IDMUD

Rule of thumb is to brake for all animals (if someone rear ends you they were too close) and swerve for deers and larger if there's room.

stevenmu

If you brake suddenly on a busy road you could create one hell of a mess. Even though technically the car behind you should leave plenty of room to brake, it may not, or may not realise how heavily you're braking. It could rear end you quite hard and force you into oncoming traffic, it could swerve into oncoming traffic itself to avoid you, oncoming traffic could swerve into you to avoid it etc. . etc... There's no way to predict the chain of events that could be triggered off, so really unless you know it's safe to brake hard, I wouldn't.

Supercell

IDMUD wrote:

Rule of thumb is to brake for all animals (if someone rear ends you they were too close) and swerve for deers and larger if there's room.

IDMUD, yep I agree, but when human safety comes into the equation , do you prioritise ?

shabbyroad

regardless of the reason for the vehicle braking in front of you. whether it's for an animal, a child, an object... whatever.

you need to leave enough braking distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.

if the vehicle in front of you needs to brake suddenly you need to be both alert enough and far enough behind not to hit them.

mike65

First rule is AVOID creating a crash (even if you're not a blame). Anything else is secondary.

Mike.

unkel

lafortezza wrote:

Don't swerve, apply brakes but not enough to get rear-ended, maybe blow the horn. If that doesn't work then byebye kitty.

Agree, you can try anything that doesn't create a danger to anyone

BrianD3

Big problem with Irish roads is that the majority of drivers are morons who tailgate the car in front. So if you braked hard it is likely that the idiot behind would hit the back of you. Is a cat worth slamming on for in this case - no. However, if you were in the exact same situation but instead of a cat it was a person or a large animal (eg a horse) ask yourself what would have happened. Even if you did slam on, would you have stopped in time to avoid a collision? If not, was it because you yourself were driving too fast for the conditions?

You need to be thinking about these possibilities all the time while driving, evaluating risks and hazards, predicting the stupid behaviour of other road users etc. This is something that most L-drivers don't have, many drivers gain it with experience, some never learn of course :rolleyes:

For example, if you could see that the cat was walking along the road up ahead could you not have reacted straightaway and braked gently to prepare for the (high) possibility that he'd wander out in front of you. Therefore avoiding the need to slam on when he does run out. Of course it depends on how far away he was when you first spotted him.

cormie

That's terrible. If it was a child would you have acted differently? Personally I wouldn't treat a cat any different from a human, if I end up having to go through insurance issues, so be it. Breaking is the only option really on a busy road, if you get rear ended it's due to the person behind you not paying enough attention/being too close/slow reactions. A bit of insurance hassle, repairs is a small price to pay for a clear head.

junkyard

I'd try not to hit anything on the road but it has to be said that cats in particular have a stupid habit of running at the last minute or running and stopping in the middle of the road and running back to the side they came from. I also think that a safe distance should be kept between cars.

Supercell

cormie wrote:

That's terrible. If it was a child would you have acted differently?

Thats a no brainer, if it was a kid or a cyclist etc ..it would have been slam on the brake time, I just feel a little bad about it being a dumb animal like a cat that clearly doesnt know the difference between the road and the pavement.

I've learned from this, wish it wasn't at the expense of an cat's life, but so be it.

cormie

Yeah, unfortunately most people don't view a cats life as important as a humans. I wonder is this because of the consequences of killing a human are far more severe, punishment wise than that of killing an animal.

Rabies

I would brake/slow down if a cat or something smaller ran infront of me. If that fails then it gets crushed.
If it was a dog or larger then I would try to avoid it.

commited

A pity, but you really should have stopped and moved it off the road/tried to help it. It must be a terrible thing to happen. I suppose as a learner you've never been in this position before. What did your accompanying driver advise?

ballooba

I'd have accelerated to give the thing a quicker death and less pain.

5500

How would u stand insurance wise if someone braked for a cat crossing the road and you did rear end them?If you were the driver who hit the car that jammed on could you say well he came to a hault for a car which was more dangerous than hitting it?

I was passing thru the pheonix park the other night and a stag shot across infront of me,he came out of no where and had i not braked id say the car would be wrote off he was huge

cormie

Ah Longfield, forgot you were the guy asking for my car, so you must only be driving a short time. Things probably could have been a lot worse for a lot of new drivers, if they were nervous so maybe 1 death is a good result of this scenario. Pitty it had to be a kitty:(

ballooba

cormie wrote:

Pitty it had to be a kitty:(

Are you for real???

cormie

Maybe that came out wrong. It's just a pitty a dead cat is the result.

thatkindofgirl

I'm a huge pet lover, but you don't brake for small animals. The potential ensuing car pile-up and loss of human life is too much risk. If you are sure you are alone on the road, yes, go ahead and brake/swerve/etc.

The fact is, domestic cats are idiots when it comes to the roads, and simply should be kept in the way dogs are meant to be... and I say meant to be because I see almost as many dogs running free as cats around Mullingar anyway.

And save the "it's cruel to confine <insert domestic animal>". It's not cruel to keep them from suffering impact injuries and dying slowly from internal bleeding by the side of the N4.

dahamsta

stevenmu wrote:

If you brake suddenly on a busy road you could create one hell of a mess. Even though technically the car behind you should leave plenty of room to brake, it may not, or may not realise how heavily you're braking.

Or simply not have as good brakes as you. Many hot hatches or powerful saloons will outbrake the arse out of a bog standard feshty, and your bog standard feshty driver is unlikely to be able to understand this.

I'll brake or swerve if I have time to take in the conditions around me. If not, bye bye kitty, as someone else said. I've done it, I have no regrets. I don't think I'd drive on without making sure the animal was put out of it's misery these days though (hasn't happened for a while). I did (not make sure) before, but that was a long time ago.

(Reminds me of the Billy Connolly story about the same thing, when he goes back to finish it off, and later notices another cat tangled in the undercarriage of the car. )

cormie wrote:

Yeah, unfortunately most people don't view a cats life as important as a humans.

Probably because they're not. Unfortunately, cat lovers tend to be dangerously obsessive about their /pets/.

adam

RotalicaV

If it was a dog, id have braked.. but cats are just bastards.

Move this to the animails forum, the uproar would be hilarious!

Boggle

God no - never ever take an emergency action for the sake of an animal... the possibility of an accident occurring, resulting in the loss of human life, is too great (even if you are likely to damage your car).

If you can take controlled action to avoid the animal then do so but otherwise its an unfortunate reality that your first priority is human life - not kitty's.

(Then ask yourself if you were doing too great a speed for the environment and learn from there...)

ds20prefecture

I'm a little confused - you saw the cat and had time to debate with yourself what the cat was going to do and yet didn't brake (normally) to avoid it? Perhaps you were travelling too fast?

Also, if you hit something on the road, you should ALWAYS stop and check what you've hit. Perhaps you could have saved some heartache for the cat's owner (e.g. not seeing their get being gradually spread over a greater area every day), perhaps you could have saved the cat itself (saving you all that emotional turnmoil as you continued on your journey), perhaps your car might have been damaged by the impact, perhaps it wasn't a cat you hit at all....

Macy

ds20prefecture wrote:

Also, if you hit something on the road, you should ALWAYS stop and check what you've hit. Perhaps you could have saved some heartache for the cat's owner (e.g. not seeing their get being gradually spread over a greater area every day), perhaps you could have saved the cat itself (saving you all that emotional turnmoil as you continued on your journey), perhaps your car might have been damaged by the impact, perhaps it wasn't a cat you hit at all....

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of braking or not for animals (depends on the conditions - only you know whether you can clear your conscience Longfield), you should've stopped after you hit it to see whether it had a tag or at least move it to the side of the road so it could be found.

I can't tell whether you were right or wrong not to slam on the brakes, I do know you were wrong to drive on rather than stop after hitting it.

css

Bye bye kitty.. been there done that.. The biggest amount of animals was a rabbit, a cat, a crow, and a sparrow, all in the one journey..

Whatever about some gentle braking, not a chance I'm gonna swerve or do anything of the sort. If it was a bigger animal I might consider it, not for some small yoke though.

Big Nelly

Only time for me was coming out river road one evening during summer....was going along doing about 50mph and out of nowhere this rabbit(run rabbit run rabbit run run run) came flying out of ditch and went head first into the wheel.....looked in mirror and seen him sent flying back into ditch....think he was trying to play chicken with the wheels....went home and said a pray....then washed the blood off my hub cap:D

prospect

Big Nelly wrote:

out of nowhere this rabbit came flying out of ditch and went head first into the wheel

What?=
I didn't know rabbits could fly!

Airblazer

commited wrote:

A pity, but you really should have stopped and moved it off the road/tried to help it. It must be a terrible thing to happen. I suppose as a learner you've never been in this position before. What did your accompanying driver advise?

are you for real?? how many learner drivers do you actually see with accompanying drivers??? none i'd bet