UKC

Found a dying deer on the road last night, my second this year. This one was just a wee fawn so I dragged it out of the road, the first one was a rather large stay, splayed out slap bang in the middle of the glencoe road after a sharp bend. Both still alive, the latter took some shifting!

So who are these people that hit animals and then just leave them lying for someone else to crash into?

Also, what do other people do? There seems to be a large reluctance to stop and move something out of the road. 5 cars drove past or sat waiting in their cars while I struggled on my own to clear it.

Had a similar experience with a fallen branch last winter; is it just the rush of everyday life that gets to people or is it just laziness/selfishness?

Ben

In reply to Sharp:

It's funny mentality as though once in a car people feel cacooned. It's almost as though what goes on outside their car isn't real time - a bit like watching TV.

I once came upon a man collapsed in the road. I stopped and jumped out, leaving my car door open as I went to help him. Following traffic also stopped because they couldn't get past my car with the door open. Eventually one drive got out and angrilly slammed my door shut before getting back into his car and driving on with much gesticulating and horn blowing, followed by the other drivers. Not one of them came to help me.

In reply to Sharp:

Good effort on your part. It's folk with no personal or social responsibility, same as ever I'm afraid. Without wanting to tempt fate, I sometimes wonder what I'd do if I hit something and it was stil alive....how do you decided how to 'treat' it? :-/

In reply to Sharp:
I have come across a few, exactly the way you described, and so it seems to be common to injure an animal while driving through its habitat (possible like a maniac) and just leave it there twitching on a bend as a surprise for the other drivers.

In reply to Trangia:


I've said it here before but it still burns me up that I spent about half an hour lying on a main road during the morning commute until a police officer on his way in stopped to call an ambulance for me. The doctor in A&E said it looked like I had been hit twice, once to knock me off my bike, breaking my arm, and again breaking my legs. I was conscious for most of the time while traffic just drove around me but unable to rollover or wave down assistance. I still hope that the two drivers and the shits that drove round me may have had some flicker of remorse but I doubt it.

In reply to Clarence: That's a disgusting event , ii am shocked that people just drove round you , hope you made a full recovery and that you still have some faith in humanity ! Like the op there are some good people out there,

In reply to Clarence: was once sent flying from my bike at a roundabout by a driver who pulled out behind and clipped me. as I struggled to my feet another car came round the corner, driver shouting abuse as he passed for inconveniencing him, presumably in the belief that I had decided to throw myself off my bike just for the hell of it

In reply to Sharp: What is the correct course of action for finding a half dead animal on the road or even if you hit one? Do you phone RSPCA, drive over them to put them out of misery, snow shovel over head? I am unsure how I would act in this situation myself.

As for seeing a human lying in the road that is pretty obvious. I find the above stories pretty shocking to say the least. Makes you wonder about the general public.

In reply to Sharp: did you try and kill the stag like jim carey did in me, myself and irene?

In reply to Sharp:

Did you take them home and eat them?

In reply to Sharp: I'm pretty sure you're supposed to report it to the local police.

In reply to cap'nChino:

I suspect most people assume that someone lying in the road is drunk unless they actually saw the accident. As for animals I think that for large animals such as deer you need to report the accident to the police, you definitely do for dogs and livestock. Smaller animals such as cats and rabbits you can just leave to expire apparently.

In reply to Sharp:

We once hit a sheep on the main road on Skye returning from Sligachan to Broadford one night. It leapt from a bank, and literally landed right in front of the car my mate was driving, so we hit it at about 50 I should think. As it went under the car, we heard it thumping, but by the time we stopped it was lying still a hundred yards back. It was just over the brow of a hill, and neither of us hesitated we just assumed it was right to do something about it. I grabbed some gloves from the boot and walked up to it. (Not velcro gloves, and we had no wellies, before some wit jumps in! )

I nearly had a heart attack when it leapt to its feet just as I started to bend down to it, went BAAAAAAA! angrily at me, and ran off. Durable things, sheep! I guess it may have suffered internal injuries though, it knocked the radiator off its mountings!

Later we picked up a hitchhiker, who told us we should report it, so we called the local bobby who said they'd pass on the info to the nearest farmer and thanked us for bothering.

I hate to believe the stories of leaving people lying injured, but sadly it does seem to happen.

In reply to Sharp:

Its a sad indication of the negative impact that the prevalence of cars have on society. Cars are brilliant, useful, clever machines, but today they are totally overused. People think they can't live without them, most have never tried. The world is being built for these machines, and in doing so people are turning themselves into machines.

In reply to Sharp:


I once hit a deer on the road from Dalwhinnie to Laggan village. Just jumped into my radiator; there was nothing I could do about it. Plainly both its front legs were broken, and a vet, had we called one, would have shot it. But it would have taken an hour for a vet to get there.

So I'm afraid I reversed back over it to make sure it was dead. Which didn't feel good at all, but better than leaving it twitching in the road would have felt. And certainly better than setting about it with an ice-axe, which apart from the car was the only lethal weapon I had with me.

In reply to Bruce Hooker: not sure i would. if they were killed outright that would be fine, but if they lingered they would be very stressed causing poor quality meat. Certainly we didn't eat the injured one we came across on Rannoch Moor (had to euthanase it with with AnnS's ice axe - sorry, Ann). AFAIK you have to report dog & livestock RTIs to the police cos they are legally classified as 'chattels' and therefore belong to someone whereas the other animals mentioned are not (but i'm sure someone with better knowledge about that will be along in a minute)

In reply to Removed User: the hammer of the ice axe, not the pointy bit

In reply to Removed User: I hit a deer on a back road near Blairgowrie once. Stopped to check on it and it was plainly suffering having had a leg ripped off. I couldn't leave it to bleed out and die slowly, but i didn't have any implement capable of ending things so had to end up standing on it's windpipe until it expired. I reckon i felt worse than i would had it been an adult human!!!
I spoke to the police about it and they weren't particularly interested, just thanked me for letting them know. Apparently there is an acronym that police use on what is reportable and what is not, but i can't recall it from memory.

In reply to Sharp:

not nice running into/over critters...but i am reminded of this simpsons episode:

youtube.com/watch?v=zPrI8db74kA&

In reply to Clarence:


I've watched roughly 10 people walking down a pavement carefully step around and in a couple of cases, over an unconscious (or at least motionless and near insensible) man sprawled across a freezing pavement... Eyes ahead, don't look at him and he's not there, not their responsibility. Turns out he was drunk and he was a pain in the ass but he was also in need of help. It cost me maybe 15 (fairly frustrating) minutes of my life but quite possibly saved his.

I think most of the time people just don't know what to do and are unwilling to give it much thought... 'better to leave it for someone who does know what to do'. Of course each successive person thinks that and you end up with dreadful stories like yours where nobody does anything.

jk

In reply to Clarence: I stopped to help a guy lying in the road last year. People were driving round him rather than stopping.
Two other people walking by came over too and we called an ambulance. It turned out he was very drunk and had fallen over. He was too drunk to get up again so lay in the road. You couldn't tell that from a car though. He'd smacked his head on the way down. For all I knew he could have been hit by a car.
It amazes me that people would just leave another person lying in the road like that.
Your story Clarence is truly appalling. It make me wish that there was karma, or hell.

In reply to Clarence:
I don't quite see how people can assume someone is drunk in the middle of a morning commute. I've seen several people lying down in the road, and only one of them was *possibly* drunk (there was a paramedic in attendance, who was doing nothing except blocking the road with his car, presumably waiting for the paddy wagon).

Frankly, it buggers belief that no one would stop to move someone out of the road, even if they were drunk.

Not sure what the best thing to do for a deer is. Would hitting it on the head with a tire iron have the necessary effect?

is it (or should it) be an offence to drive past someone in the road and not lend assistance ?
Not sure how the hell it'd work but its a shame that ist not done automatically ?

Maybe some people are worried about the casualty assualting them ?

Dunno

In reply to Nutkey:
Mind you, I'm reminded of the time I ran past someone, and past a bollard - which turned out to be a one of those bollards with a sticky out bit to stop cattle (it was dark, and the bollard was black). I ended up lying on the ground, and the guy walked straight past. The cyclist behind him (who hadn't seen what happened) did stop. I decided I was just winded, caught up with the first guy and thanked him for his concern.

Needless to say, he paid me exactly the same amount of attention as he had the first time. I think I must have been playing an extra in 6th sense or something.

In reply to Removed User:

After running over a dog that came out of a house in the middle of the night, I went to report it to the plod, and whilst there asked why we have to report dogs but not cats etc. Plod's response was that dogs are large enough to do damage and can cause serious injury... therefore if you run in to a dog that damages your car you are with in your rights to demand the owner reimburses you for damage caused. I think it's different with farm animals unless the farmer has a history of not repairing his fences and keeping animals under control (obviously this doens't apply in cattle grid areas)

In reply to Removed User:

I had a mate who found a dear tangled in a barbed wire fence. It was in a pretty bad way so he finished it off by breaking it's neck, so he said and it's probabl true as he was a big bloke, then took it home and hung it in his cellar - you are supposed to do this for a few days for game meat. When I saw it he'd skinned it but it was still hanging form the hook and looked like a skinned child hanging there - all pretty yucky! I couldn't have done it, but when he'd finished and we ate roast venison I didn't turn my nose up. You could say that if we want to eat meat we should face up to what it involves, which is all he did.

Apparently you should report any find like this to the Gendarmes (it being in the French countryside) but his point of view was that if he had they would have thrown it in the boot for dinner rather than him, and at least he put it out of its suffering.

In reply to Sharp:

Someone told me there's a law that means you can't collect an injured animal if you've hit it. Something to do with preventing people deliberately hitting something and then collecting it for tea. Can anyone confirm that?

I was once a passenger in a car that hit a lamb in Glencoe, its mother ran out in front of the car and then the lamb followed but not quickly enough and was lifted over the bonnet of the car. The mother was also just missed by an 18 wheeler in the other lane which braked hard and nearly slapped the car behind us with its swerving trailer. The road was busy in both directions and is narrow there so the nearest safe place to stop was in a lay by about a quarter of a mile away and round a corner. There was not really anything we could do at that point, but on a quiet road the decent thing to do would be to get out and check and at least move it off the road to die quietly if you can.

In reply to Sharp: I was in the Czech countryside a few years back when a young chap ran down a small dear (not sure of the breed as it was the first I had seen of that particular type)

it was still breathing but in a bad way as it had rolled under the car , its legs where pointing the wrong way and blood spilt everywhere, the wife and friends are a tad delicate and I couldn’t stand by and watch it suffer and cry. I did the only thing I could and choked it to death.

We then threw it in the back of the young fellas car and he took it home to his mum for dinner. Different rules over there.

In reply to mux:

Not as different as you may think

In reply to Sharp: makes me sick to the stomache how people can do this. Wouldnt leave a person in the road to die slowly would though why should they leave a poor innocent animal.

Sickens me to see how much road kill there is these days on the road. I would be so upset and gutted if I ever hit anything.

Some people just dont have a heart im sure of it

In reply to Sharp: Ps: good on you for moving it. Good deed by you.

In reply to Jimbo C:

Yeah, you're right. If you hit an animal, you can't take it, but the car immediately behind you can.
Having said that, a mate of mine once hit a huge stag. He strapped it to his bonnet and drove it to his local butcher and sold it to pay for some of the repairs to his van. Got a decent price too!

In reply to Clarence: Once I somehow managed to fall off my bike on an empty country road. I landed on my helmet and was lying there tangled in the frame when a car suddenly came around the corner and stopped a few feet from me. I was still feeling stunned and not moving, but after a few seconds having a think the driver carefully mounted the verge to get around me and drove off. I was absolutely fine, and being about 12 didn't really think anything of the incident until later when I realised the driver didn't know I wasn't hurt.

Maybe they thought all my mates were lying in ambush in the hedge.

In reply to Sharp: people in general just dont want to get involved. I have tended to people at a few accidents when others have just driven away and I only hope that when they need help no one botheres.

Animals are easy, working all round the dales I cop for rabbits and phesants quite often and sometimes come accross them half squished but still alive. If it is safe to do so I stop and give them a bop on the head with my hammer and chuck the body under a bush for the other wee beasties to feed on.

In reply to Flashy:

Probaly thought it was one of them bikers' traps

In reply to Sharp: The other side of the coin. 3 weeks ago I got my bike out the shed for the 1st time in years. 2nd day I fell off on the road and knocked myself out. I know this because at 1st I was trying to get back on at the top of a hill then I was looking at a very nice sky and feeling actually kinda good. Then a face appeared above me asking if I was OK. Yeah says me, doing OK, why? You just fell off your bike mate. Really? Looks around oh sh*t so I did. Two guys driving past stopped to see if I was OK, then one of them walked me home pushing my bike for me. Good random strangers who cared enough about another human being to go out of their way to help. Restored my faith etc.

In reply to Sharp: dont have too many deer problems in chester city centre fortunatly.
did once run over a cat though,wasnt too difficult to shift.

In reply to Sharp:

on both occasions when i have hit stuff i stopped (first on a moped 2nd on a bicycle). couldn't find the cat i went over although i did look, 2nd occasion was on a bicycle and i had to get both the dead pidgeons out of my front wheel

In reply to Sharp: on a plus if there is one, i was working on a site in glazgee and one of the fella's there would collect road kill like deer, pheasant, rabbit, etc.. butcher it and give it to people who wanted to eat it, he had a freezer full and often the boot of his car. i like the idea of the animal not going to waste. and the site of him carving of a leg at the roadside must be a shock to some drivers
apparently if you knock it down yourself and collect it to eat you can be done for poaching but if somebody else does the knocking over your ok, dunno how true that is but is what he said.

In reply to Sharp:

If you hit a deer, please finish it off if injured. I hit a beautiful stag on easter Sunday, it jumped out of a ditch at the side of the road, caught it in mid air.

Fortunately it had stopped twitching by the time I had safely parked the car, but I had my folding spade with me.
Unfortunately I had to report it (staying in a veggie household over the holidays), otherwise I wouldn´t mind some free venison.

CB

Section 170(8) of the Road Traffic Act 1988- the duty to stop/report accidents, says:

"In this section "animal" means horse, cattle, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat or dog."

Trangia and Clarance, sorry to hear about people being left in the road while people drove past, pretty sad to hear.

There's definitely an "it's not my problem" attitude these days. I do wonder sometimes what's happening when moving something off the road is seen as a 'good deed'. It isn't really, at least it shouldn't be, it's just common sense. I nearly hit a bin the other day lying in the road; same old story, plenty people driving past it.

Regarding euthanising animals that have been hit, I wonder how many people who advocate "putting it out of it's misery" have actually dispatched a big animal. It's different with a bird and having euthanised a number kamikaze pheasants before I wouldn't hestiatate again but a deer is a different story. It can be surprising how much life is left in a dying animal and without mincing my words, if you f*ck it up you could be seriously injured.

cb294: "If you hit a deer, please finish it off if injured...I had my folding spade with me."

I'm not being funny but have you tried to kill a 300lb adult stag with a folding spade before? If you're 100% sure that the animal will die anyway and you're 100% sure you can kill it cleanly then fair enough, go ahead. But don't advise everyone to "please finish it off". There are plenty city boys and girls I know that I wouldn't trust to put down a mouse let alone make a judgement call on a large animals injuries and then cleanly kill it.

Ben

In reply to Mal Grey:

We were behind an old ice cream van in North Wales that tw*tted a sheep seemingly full on at 40mph. The thing rolled to the side of the road, got up and ran off into the hills. Sheep are probably too stupid to realise they're dead for half an hour or so.

I though I'd run over a cat once, but got out and it was nowhere to be seen. Must have run under the car missing the wheels by inches.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Many years ago I hit a dog on my way to work one morning. I got out of the car to check it at, and moved the body to the side of the road.

On the way home, I thought I'd pop in to the house it ran out of to tell them what happened - the bastard ran out barking at me as I was explaining things to the owner.

In reply to Sharp:
>

People who have little sense of social conscience or the price of venison.


Well if it was a deer (or pheasant etc.) then it goes into the boot then the freezer. But generally speaking I would stop and move anything I found lying in the road.

In reply to fijibaby:
well done Fijibaby - and others. Drunk, smelling of alcohol...or diabetic? Whatever, they're still a human being.
Yesterday, we saw a grey-haired guy on a bench halfway up a hill,bicycle leant against the bench, but half-sprawled & leaning to one side, almost like the stroke adverts. Turned out he was having a rest, but took a lot of waking up. Shaking by the shoulder is effective. Maybe stand back.

More tales, including a guy on the south circular half on the pavement and another in north london in a side-road, with his head on the centre-line. yes, he was drunk and swearing was involved, but could you live with yourself if there was an article or obituary in the local paper?
God forbid I should ever hit an animal. How can people *swerve* round someone/thing?

Country folk I know relish badger-ham, venison etc., even fox! (not recommended, btw) better than wasting it.

In reply to Sharp:


That's more or less what I was thinking. I've finished off a few injured birds and one poor rabbit I can think of (interrupted kill by something that looked (methinks) like a weasel - very messy). But getting anywhere near a large panicked stag with pointy bits unlikely to be a good thing for either party.

Not sure what the right thing to do would be in that situation. Possibly call police, especially if it was obstructing the highway. Possibly drop in on the nearest farm/estate who will either have a gun or know someone else who does? Possibly find the number of a vet?

It's not obvious but I certainly wouldn't just drive on by.