Hitting animals with your truck

ill start my story by saying I had a bag a chips on my dash that I was munching on. driving along I hit a bird on the passenger side of my windshield at about 65 mph. the bird rolls from the passenger side to the driver side coming through my driver side window and directly into my bag of chips!

 

Was it a Parachip?

 

I've hit a few small critters before, but back in '00, few months after getting my nice new truck, I hit a small deer (about the size of a great dane) on US 287 coming out of Hugo, Co., bounced him into the NB lanes, where he lay, dead, with his legs sticking straight up in the air..........Central coming the other way, I warned him about the deer in his lane, when I came back through NB about 4 hrs later, Central was sitting DOA about 5 miles north of town on the shoulder, seems as he went over the deer, one of it's legs caught his crossover line, ripped it loose and dumped what remained in his already low tanks on the on the ground. That would explain the odd looking trail of liquid I saw as well.

Colorado State Patrol has a picture on the wall from back in the 80's driver in long nose Pete hit a bull elk on I-70, sadly, it didn't end well for either of them.

 

Do tumbleweeds count? A herd of tumbleweeds?

 

Had a tech drive a customers truck to figure out an issue with the customer in it, about 30 minutes into the drive I get a phone call that they hit a deer. That one was a fun one to explain.

 

They often like to commit mass suicide...

 

I had a good sized bird thump my windshield once in PA. That sure woke me up. I was somewhat surprised the windshield didn't crack because it sounded like a bowling ball. Feathers and goo splattered all over the place.

 

Soem crazy stores you guys have, so did you have had to pay for the damage or did the company pay? I cant prove it was a deer.

 

My company paid for the damage when I was hit pay a deer. Why would you need proof? If your working for a company that doesn't believe what your saying, time to move on.

 

Huh. I was driving a Ryder rental a few years back while my rig was in the shop. Was deadheading back to our wood yard from a GP plant and decided to take the "scenic" route thru the woods bordering a National Forest. Came to a stop where one county road ended, and made a left onto the next.....They are 55 MPH two lanes in the area; after I completed my turn and throttled up, I had just gotten up to 55 five, when out of the corner of my right eye I spot a brown blur in the air about 10 ft. or so off the ground. As I turn to see it clearly, it sharply veers directly at me! Well, there was nothing I could do but watch in the 1.5-2 seconds or so it took this wild turkey to commit suicide directly in the middle of the one piece Freightshaker windshield!

The next thing I know, there is a tremendous "WHUMP" and the windshield comes buckling in at me, with tiny pieces of safety glass and feathers all over the cab! Thankfully, the bulk of the windshield held as the bird went bouncing off the drivers side of the cab frame. However, for the remainder of the 30 or so miles back, I had to keep it under 30 MPH to keep the windshield from collapsing in on me. Got some skeptical looks at first once I returned the tractor to Ryder, until the service manager saw all the feathers and mites spread throughout the cab (daycab fortunately for them....)


A little after, when I related the story to my ardent nature-lover wife, the response I got was a little unexpected.....She first made a noticeable gasp (we were on the phone), then the first words out of her mouth were "Oh my gosh! Is the turkey okay??!?!!?


To which I snarkly replied...."Oh, don't worry honey.....Other than some shards of glass all over, I'M just FINE!!!!!!