[honeybee]

My own incident: On the return journey from an outstation trip to my home, I came across a dog that was surprised to see a car coming at it at around 80 kmph. I braked enough to make sure the dog wouldn't be tossed away and I could stop in case running over the dog caused anything to break under the car. Ran over the dog, heard the whimpering of the dog, no breaks or any other unusual sounds, carried on for a few more metres, saw the dog limp away, and once I was sure my car was more or less alright, drove on.

Another incident happened closer to home, again on highway, where a dog was standing bang in the middle of my lane. I was doing 80kph and decided not to swerve into another lane. Honked my horn, but the dog was looking the other way till the very last moment. Drove over him at about 55kmph or so. Again checked for anything unusual and found the car was ok and drove on.

A third incident happened in the outskirts of Kalyan where I was doing about 40kph and there were quite a few cars driving neck to neck in a two lane road to surge ahead. I was on the right and another car was on the left. It was around 8 in the night and quite dark. Suddenly from the opposite side of the road, a dog entered my lane. Saw the car coming straight at him, panicked and probably jumped. Hit the bonnet of my car and was tossed further away. No damage suffered (to my car).

The rule of thumb I follow is saving the dog is the last of my priorities.

[RedMM340]

For all the folks that are glad to hear that the dog limped away and 'survived'. Sorry to say that the poor dog probably died a painful and slow death after the impact due to massive internal injuries. It is better to kill the poor animal than wounding it and causing a slow death.

I hit a dog on national highway 1A several weeks ago doing about 100kph. I saw the dog coming out of the corner of my eye, and did not have time to safely avoid it. So I hit it head on and probably killed it instantly. No damage to my Jeep.

If you do not have the reaction time to safely change direction for a small animal, just hit it, or you may end up hurting yourself and/or another motorist.

[honeybee]

With all due respect, RedMM, your focus while driving should not be to save/kill the dog, but to make sure your car and its occupants will be safe. Driving a jeep it won't matter much if you hit the dog on its head or tail, but it's a nerve-wrecking experience to have a dog wriggling underneath your car as you are doing 60kmph, because you don't know all the things the dog's body may break. I have heard of cases where the front of the car was damaged after hitting a dog (albeit at a high speed) and the driver had to replace several parts including the radiator.

[nairrk]

All the three dogs came in front of your car (and got hit) on the same day, same route -surprising! even after the three hit's your car is safe without any damage-thats good.
Be careful whenever you see a dog on the road - sometime it can be dangerous too!

[akshaymahajan]

Strange to hear that you guys care about your cars more than a poor animals life. And have no remorse in killing it if your car is not scratched. Now it looks like a competition on who killed more dogs.
Why drive at 100 kmph when you know that you cant stop in case needed? What if a kid comes in front instead of the dog? Please in that case stop your car, get down and help him instead of assessing the damage on your stupid car.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by akshaymahajan

Strange to hear that you guys care about your cars more than a poor animals life. And have no remorse in killing it if your car is not scratched. Now it looks like a competition on who killed more dogs.
Why drive at 100 kmph when you know that you cant stop in case needed? What if a kid comes in front instead of the dog? Please in that case stop your car, get down and help him instead of assessing the damage on your stupid car.

Wow, you make it sound as if I am out to kill stray dogs with my car!! Sorry dude, I have better things to do with my car than go trampling stray dogs. If I have to make a choice between swerving/braking wildly and risk an accident for a human being, I wouldn't think twice. And if I were to make that choice for a stray dog, again I wouldn't think twice. I hope I am clear.

@nairrk, sorry if I gave the impression of all the three incidents happening on the same day. They happened quite a few months apart from each other.

[Ranjan Sharma]

Originally Posted by akshaymahajan

Strange to hear that you guys care about your cars more than a poor animals life. And have no remorse in killing it if your car is not scratched. Now it looks like a competition on who killed more dogs.
Why drive at 100 kmph when you know that you cant stop in case needed? What if a kid comes in front instead of the dog? Please in that case stop your car, get down and help him instead of assessing the damage on your stupid car.

Akshay, Whatever you said is good but we can't just drive at 20KMPH on highways thinking a dog would come on the way. It's not a pleasure for people killing dogs, but it's like, they don't have an option. Either hurt yourself or the animal.

Example of a kid does not make sense, a kid won't jump from the bushes in the road.

[phamilyman]

I can't say I had a similar case of http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...blindness.html but a couple of weeks back while driving back late night on NH2, a black puppy almost ran into my car bit more than perpendicularly.

It hit the side of the car even as I swerved heavily.

It did give me a bit of a panic moment as i imagined being stranded on the highway with a broken radiator.

But seriously, how should one minimize the damage in such an instance?

[download2live]

You can't do much in this case. In fact I would say better drive straight and not to try to swerve here an there to save the dog. Will minimize the chances of an accident especially if you are at high speed. Sounds cruel and much more easier to say than to do though.

[NinadJoshi]

NEVER swerve or take evasive action against an animal on the road.
The most important thing is to remain in control of your vehicle.
You want to avoid being a single source of multiple accidents on the road.
Collateral damage from evasive action can be more dangerous than a collision with the dog or cow itself.

Take the hit.

[suhaas307]

As they say, "take one for the team!"

On a serious note, there are other vehicles on the highway apart from the one you're driving. All of them are doing good speeds. One sudden move, and all of you'll will fall like domino chips.

I know, the 'evasive action' that we might take would genuinely be instantaneous and reflexive, but we must make a conscious effort to not swerve or brake hard, just to avoid an animal.

I'm an animal lover and it pains me to see road-kill every time we hit the highway. But some things are just inevitable, I suppose.

Next time round, when you see a pack of dogs, or some animals, just come off the gas-pedal and dab the brakes. I've avoided several accidents doing just that.

[mayankk]

Thanks for this.
There's so many posts I have seen that have professed that dont swerve or take evasive action in case a dog or a cat gets in your path, for the " greater good", and it sickened me.

Well yes, of course, in case it involves major damage or loss, one could do that.

But like you said, do keep an eye out, and watch out for the animals as wide as you would for other humans/cars.
Doesn't take much effort.

[ghodlur]

+1 to what Suhaas & Mayank have said. I do ensure to take enough precautions whenever I spot a dog/cat but sometimes it becomes difficult to gauge the animals in the blind spot area. For eg the dogs who follow your cars till a certain distance, it is difficult to spot them in OVRM's immediately.

Also I do ensure to glance the underbody whenever I have parked for longer durations to check if the space is occupied.

Touchwood, till date no hit encountered from any 4 legged species.

[mayankjha1806]

I have had fairly decent experiences with Dogs, as when i see one on the road (or on the side), not looking at my direction i honk and honk hard and it notices me and takes evasive action. This has happened at highway speeds, with heavy traffic, all i had to do was slow down a little and honk hard.

Its not the dogs that cause so much worry, as compared to pigs and cows. Pigs because they do not listen to honking and usually do not understand what they should do, usually they never turn back, they keep going forward hence its safer to turn the car assuming the pig will continue on its course albeit faster. Cows because they are much bigger and take time to move, and if you hit them at high speed there is a decent chance the car will be toast and one might have causalities.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Thanks for this.
There's so many posts I have seen that have professed that dont swerve or take evasive action in case a dog or a cat gets in your path, for the " greater good", and it sickened me.

Sometimes it is much easier to say something leisurely sitting in your house but following the same in an actual situation is albeit different and more difficult. There was another thread too where to save a child on the road, a Innova swerved and went on to hit the another oncoming car on the other side. By some miracle no one got hurt.

The basic question was discussed there too. What do you do when you encounter an obstruction in your path at the very end moment when you know that no amount of braking is gonna save you from hitting it head on at speeds in excess of 60kmph. And it is in these cases when many drivers who know breaking is the textbook solution but would rather swerve to avoid hitting it, even though in the end it might prove more disastrous for the vehicle itself. I doubt if we can ever know how we will actually react if put in such a situation. Conscience is too strong a modality to ignore.

As far as the thread topic goes: How many dog hits are caused when driving within speed limits? Which I presume are 90kmph for most national highways and less than 60 for most city roads. Its time we start valuing life, ours and others.