just reading about the accident on a1 this week, the local paper[ grantham journal] says it was caused by lorry driver braking to avoid fox on road thus causing truck to jacknife, trailer going through central reservation an hitting on comming van and car
i just cant get my head round that[ yea i no its the local rag and anything for a story] but would you brake for a fox on the a1 if its true.
dog, cat, fox or rabbit i wouldnt even lift for, cattle, horse, deer i would
maybe its the fact im not a animal lover ,
but would you brake for a fox etc 
Depends if she was a total fox or just a babe.
OH, maybe you don’t mean that kind of fox. 
theres always one 
Cats and rabbits you’ll probably get away with as they’ll go under the truck, but an average size dog or fox will make a hell of a mess of the front of your wagon if you hit it at 50+.
Depending on where any other traffic was, I would have swerved or slammed on too if it was a fox. 
i hit a horse at 40 mph on the A19 near easingwold 
Same story was in the Newark Paper BAD driver jackknives on A1 causing bedlam, nothing about kindness and ecological road sense, just he had braked and jack knifed.
If it was me i couldnt give qa ■■■■ ill kill anything that runs out in front of me sometimes ill aim for it but usually only if its a cat, they just make me think of Sarah Kennedy…
pmsl @ jammy.
i once hit a neighbours dog in my tansit many moons ago,it was on an estate where we lived,outside my m8,s house.
the dog lived next door to my m8.ever since then everytime i went to my m8,s house this dog would growl,snarl and try to attack me
ady1:
theres always one
Oh Yes.
You are aware that a fox can turn into a dog? Usually about the time you sober up. 
I am an animal lover and vegetarian (perhaps the only driver I know like this).
However, you have to weigh up the consequences and that isnt always easy at 56mph with 1/2 a split second to react. I’ve had a few animals run out in front of me. I once had a deer stand in the middle of the road at 1am near peterborough. I was only doing 40mph and I picked him up in my main beam. He wasn’t moving out of the way so I slowed a bit, hit my horn and he ran off. I think if you’ve got enough time and you see the animals early enough then it is the right thing to do to at least attempt to slow and give the animal a chance to get out of the way.
If I’m doing 56 and a fox darted out in front of me then I think my brain would take the split second reaction of choosing to kill the fox rather than risk jack knifing and causing mayhem, perhaps injury or even death. I would avoid any animal at all costs if I know I can avoid them and I’ve got plenty of time and nobody else is around to get hit by me if I swerve.
When something runs out in front of you in the early hours of the morning, your immediate instinct/reaction is to swerve, if only because you dont know what it is and god forbid it be a local pishhhhead got lost.
I have missed a few inbreeds around the Swindon area.
Well i must admit i dont like to kill things, live and let live and all that. If it’s save to take evasive action i will, however i put human life above that of any animal so sometimes you just have to flatten the odd bunny.
Got a baby bunny in my van the other day, no traffic about so i swerved, trouble is so did the bunny 
but an average size dog or fox will make a hell of a mess of the front of your wagon if you hit it at 50+.
well not if you have a decent motor Although you might have to hose some ‘mess’ off the front of it. 
I mean i’ve seen trucks run into the back of cars at 50ish and not sustain any damage. (not one of mine i must add)
Once you start getting up to St Bernard size animals and bigger then you begin to look at ‘possible’ damage. Not as much as swerving into the transit van on the other side of the road though…
When something runs out in front of you in the early hours of the morning, your immediate instinct/reaction is to swerve, if only because you dont know what it is and god forbid it be a local pishhhhead got lost
This is true, when you see something in your periphery [sp], escpecially if you’re a bit tired.
where we lived,outside my m8,s house.
Did you have a caravan then? or just a cardboard box?
I am an animal lover and vegetarian
Thats funny - I’m a vegetable lover and an animal
No way I’d brake for anything like a fox/dog/cat, but I wouldn’t deliberately aim for one unless It was close to tea-time.
I never swerve for livestock, but to preserve a human life , probably.
I once had a Deer run out in front of me late one night on the A40 between Oxford and Cheltenham, a fine fully grown specimin of a Stag, I was tanking on a bit and he hopped into the road, looked and must have decided a truck was no contest and started to try and out run me, I was backing off trying to brake as hard as I could without losing control, and just as I was about to make contact he moved over to the right, only to be hit by a following car that was overtaking me because I’d slowed down 
The animal went over the roof of the car and landed on its back and slid onto the verge.
Turned out the car driver was a Vet on a call out, but he could’t help the poor animal as he thought the collision had broken its spine. I had to hang onto the poor beasties head to hold it still while the Vet prepared an injection and put it down. A memorable night indeed.
Whitetail deer are a big problem here. They get knocked over all the time and do big damage to trucks and cars. They are dumb as a bag of hammers. If one runs across in front then the rest of the herd will run across, sometimes into the side of a truck doing 60mph.
But there are other animals that I would defy anyone NOT to swerve for. When you see a tonne of bull moose standing there in the middle of the road you will swerve…and crap yourself! There was one on BF who hit one a few weeks back. $60000 damage. Another of ours caught the tail end of one last week. He just brushed it really. New hood, headlights, bumper and trim. He was lucky. The moose walked away virtually unhurt.
Bears are another. They run on all fours real close to the ground and weigh about a 1/4 tonne or more. They’ll take the radiator, intercooler and AC rad out, along with the timing case, bumper, hood, lights, etc…
Now you’ve got me thinking. Of through Ontario later. Bears, deer and moose out there. Not to mention beaver.
Wrong type though!!
would rather flatten the fox than brake or swerve,it aint my motor.What eveidence have you that a fox/dog/cat/rabbit jumped out in front of you?..when all the old bill is interested in is the car you have flattened?,or will the fox stay and be a witness for you?
If an animal runs out in front of me I wiil do what I can to avoid hitting it if possible but if it comes to a choice between running over a fox/cat/dog, etc or causing a road death then the animal would be the lesser fo two evils. Having said that, and as a real animal lover, it would upset me for days.
Hit a deer near Thetford once, made a real mess of the nearside front of the DAF 3300, huge dent, broken step, blood and fur everywhere. Reported it and Plod came out, [zb]'s cautioned me said I might get done for due care, I did’nt hear any more about it but that’s not the point, pillocks!
Animals ?
Pink Floyd
Good album 
Many years ago, driving a Range Rover along country lanes, and moving on a bit, I came round a bend to find a horse doing a ‘backward shuffle’ towards the centre of the road. In front of me was a Land Rover which went onto the offside of the road to miss it and then did the ‘rubbernecking’ bit and hung about instead of using his mirror and recognising a distinct possibility of being rear ended. Hence a choice. A slight possibility of entering a field at an extremely oblique angle between substantial posts or, the horse.
The horse lost. Which made a mess of the front of the Range Rover (not to mention the horse - glue factory material). And the rider wasn’t too happy as his mode of transport changed from being a ‘horse rider’ to ‘Range Rover roof surfer’ to ‘pedestrian’.
I’ve gone over a rabbit and actually heard the ‘squish’ as it became Roadkill. I’ve also been with in a car with someone when we hit a rabbit and then had to go back and put it out of its misery.
Hedgehogs. They’re my favourites. Providing it’s a time of year when they are not rearing young, I get out, tap them with my foot, fetch my gloves, and then abduct them. Into the back of the car and take them home. My garden is inundated with snails. Less so when I have a couple of hedgehogs patrolling at night. Only problem is that our cats pick up fleas from them.
A friend of mine. The owner of a cat. A rather large cat. A damned obese cat. Once had under their garden shed, a vixen and her cubs. As the cubs ventured out the cat would play with them. Under the watchful eye of the vixen. For the cubs, it was a ‘toughening up’ exercise. And at no time was the cat threatened by the vixen.
In the early hours of the morning, in an urban environment, I’ve even seen foxes exhibiting a greater awareness of the ‘Green Cross Code’ than many children. They will stand or sit, at the side of the road, awaiting a gap in the traffic, before crossing.
When it comes down to priorities it is Me First. Other sentient individuals next. Other forms of life are subject to the Darwinian principle that ‘intelligent’ animals will survive, and that those that aren’t, won’t.
bobthedog:
Now you’ve got me thinking. Of through Ontario later. Bears, deer and moose out there.
Make’s a change from just the odd badger back home I guess Though those are plenty big solid creatures too when you hit one with the car.