What would you do if you ran over something on the road?

I think I ran over a squirrel once while driving to work. I'm not sure, though. It was rush hour so traffic was heavy. A squirrel darted out into the road directly in front of my car and I had no chance at all of stopping unless I wanted to create a bad traffic accident. When I looked into my rear-view mirror, the squirrel was running around in tiny circles so I'm not sure if I ran over it's foot, it's tail, or just scared it silly. I couldn't stop because of traffic behind me and no place to pull over. The next day, I looked for a squashed squirrel in the road where it ran in front of my car and there was none. There really should have been one if I had run over part of it; other cars would definitely also have run over it unless it got out of the road quickly and the only way it could have gotten out of the road quickly is if I did not hurt it, or at least didn't hurt it too badly. I was VERY thankful that I didn't see any squashed squirrels in the road! Another time, I took my son out to buy him new shoes that he absolutely HAD to have for school the next day. (It was just a peer thing, not required by the school.) While driving back home from the shoe store (this was nighttime and very dark outside) on a relatively small, residential road in the middle of town, I hit a deer. I didn't know it was a deer at first. All I knew was that I heard a loud thump and my car jerked hard, then I saw something brown rolling up and over my car. I slammed on the brakes and screamed, "What was that???" My son, ever so calmly, said, "I think you just hit a deer, Mom." I pulled over to the side of the road and put my emergency flashers on. I jumped out of the car and looked back to see this poor deer (a 6-point buck!), flopping all over the road, scared out of his mind! His back was broken and his back legs were paralyzed. My first reaction was to stand in the middle of the road to stop traffic coming from either direction, which I did. I wanted only for the deer not to get hit again. It wasn't long before the police came. The deer managed to roll down a small hill and laid down beside a shed. The police officer went over to the deer and shot it in the head because there was nothing anyone could do for it. (I honestly wanted to take the buck home and try to make him better.) It was at that time that I went over to the front of my car to have a look. The deer damaged my left front quarter panel, grill, hood, windshield, running light and headlight! I was so angry that I asked the officer if I could have the deer. He said sure and he and another man put it into the trunk of my car. I took it home, cleaned and gutted it, chopped it up and put it in the freezer! I would have NEVER thought I could ever do anything like that before in my life but anger sure does make us do some strange things! It turned out that the deer caused over $2,000.00 worth of damage to my car and I had no insurance for deer damage. That venison was some really expensive meat!!! Anyway, that's what I did when I hit something in the road.

Hi thea, thankfully I have never had that problem as I don't drive or at least I don't know how to drive, not yet! I'm sure that this would be quite a traumatic experience for anyone though. I am however a regular cyclist and sometimes I'm cycling on a towpath next to a river where I live and I do notice lots of snails on the path and it's really horrible. I cannot help but run over them accidentally at times and it really messes up my tyres! That's about the worst case scenario I have faced in relation to running over things! Andrew

I hit a lab puppie one time,he ran right out in front of me.But it was the guys fault ,not on a chain and ran out in dark . He ran back to the house thought he was ok,but when I got to the door .I could see what had happened. The guy was cool because it was his fault.But boy did they tease me about it. And all I could do was cry more!

To be frank, I have never ran over anything like that till now. Even if I came across such a situation, there is no way I'm going to stop the car & go after it. the reason for this is that I really cant see anything bleeding & I think there is nothing much I can do because I wont have any clue where the hospitals would be & I will be looking at it helplessly. Even though it might be a little harsh, but I think it's better for me to drive away & what happened is happened. If it would have been a human, the answer would have been different. Happy Lotting

I have run over "something". It happened when I was about 16 1/2 or so. I felt the thump, and didn't know what I had hit. So, I went back and checked to see what it was, praying it was not a puppy. I was quite relieved when I found the rat or possum. I can't really remember what it was, but I know it was something that didn't really touch my heart (like a puppy or kitten). Oh, the good old days of growing up in the country!

hi thea! from where i came from we don't have any goats crossing the streets. what we usually have are chickens, cats, rats, frogs, and usually stray dogs. i'm not proud of it but when people here ran over something they just don't do anything. i've seen it once or twice when dogs are ran over and their insides are splatted all over the road. the driver doesn't even stop to inspect but he will just continue on his way. here we don't put too much value on animals' lives not like from other places i know of. here a road kill would just stay splattered on the road for days. people do not even pick them up nor throw them of the road or bury them. we have less concern for this kinds of things but that's our culture. can't really do anything about it except to accept it.

I will stop and have a look , if can report to the relevant department about the accident .

I don't have a car and I don't know how to drive, so I really can't say what I'll really do if something like that happens. I've been in a situation once when the car I was in hit a dog. The dog jumped on the road (I don't know what scared him) and it got hit by the car's door. The dog got up and walked away, but it got a serious hit. It didn't feel very good to hit the animal, but even if we would have killed it, I don't think we would have stopped. I don't want to seem cold-hearted, but what else can you do once you run over an animal and kill it? If it belongs to someone, the owner should take better care of it. And there are greater chances for the owner to find its animal (it is reasonable to presume he know where his animal wonders about) than for you to find the owner... Lately I was in someone's car for longer trips and at one time she turned around the car and went back a little. I didn't understand at first, but later I found out she always does that when she feels the car might have hit something. She did that quite a few times, and we've never seen any road kill (she just drove through small water pools and stuff like that). She seemed very determined to take the animals to a vet, if she'd hit any, even if most of the time we were in the middle of nowhere...

Thank goodness, i have never run over anything but once in my life & that has been 40 years ago i hit a dog. It was horrible & i hope i never have that experience again.

Let it go and kept running, according to plan.

I'd probably want to save the animal if it was still alive. I don't like killing animals by any means by that I mean accident or otherwise. I'd probably take it to the nearest vet and try to save it.

Hello my friend Thank goodness this has never happened to me, and if it did I would be so scared, what can I do, I would not touch the animal thats for sure, do I wait for someone to stop and we? what do you do when things like this happen, call 911? I would assume you should move the animal so other cars can pass, since I can't touch them I should wait for someone else to move them for me, hmmmm, would someone actually do that for me?, wow I just hope this never happens to me