[sagarpadaki]

I had a snake crossing road incident a couple of years ago on a rural single lane road. It was dusk and I saw the snake crossing the road barely 50 feet away. Did hard braking and evasive maneuver to avoid running over the snake. Thankfully the road was deserted and no vehicles behind me or in the opposite lane. The reaction was instinctive. There was no way I could have predecided if I would run over the snake or take the action I took. It just boils down to the moment unless you have practiced something to become a muscle memory

[locusjag]

Came across this video, which happens to be close to where I live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vt_Fg_VvV4

This road (Vandalur-Kelambakkam road) was hastily laid as a 4 laned road just so that former (late) Hon'ble CM Jayalalitha could travel freely from her farmhouse on ECR to the GST road in Chennai. In their haste to convert a 1 lane road, they failed to acquire enough land to allow for a proper shoulder on either side. As an afterthought, as you can see in this video, they're trying to add shoulders on the road.

The S-Cross has skidded here on the slushy cement mix. Eventually, they finished laying interlocking stones on top of the cement layer.

[nettooran]

Originally Posted by amrit_bareta

Brother, I don't know who was driving the car , but you did a great job by saving someone's life. May God bless the car driver.

Thank You!. That was me driving and as with the car in front of me, I was also in a Duster

[prajwalmr62]

Originally Posted by locusjag

The S-Cross has skidded here on the slushy cement mix. Eventually, they finished laying interlocking stones on top of the cement layer.

What that S-Cross guy was thinking? Every other car I see are trying to be in a single lane.

- Probably couldn't notice the end of the second lane? I see no marking or anything to indicate the end of lane.
- But, he was behind you for sure. When you swerved to right, he thought it is a good time to overtake? from left side? when he could clearly see a truck in front?
- Were the tyres worn out? Couldn't stop even after braking due to that? Because I see the car going a smooth straight line and then taking right turn to avoid hitting parked truck.
- I'm not sure if the brake was applied before car hits the truck and the lady in the scooty. I see no reduction in speed.

I'm genuinely confused.

This could have ended in a far far worse situation than what happened.

[sravankrishnan]

Originally Posted by locusjag

Came across this video, which happens to be close to where I live.

Would have been good if we had a rear dashcam footage as well but couldn't find it in the channel. The lady did well to avoid the Ciaz, it could've been much worse.

[AJ56]

I disagree with many of the posts justifying hitting (and likely killing) the dog above, if I’m driving I’ll do my damned best to avoid hitting any living animal or human, dog or otherwise. If this means my car is totalled so be it, I won’t have the blood of the unfortunate animal on my conscience. I’ll explain-

Someone above said it takes 5 seconds to react, you shouldn’t be driving if it takes anything over 0.2-0.3 secs max to react (avg alert human reaction time). Even 1 whole second on the road is an eternity.

People underestimate their own cars handling ability, at 100-120 you can make minor quick and sharp 5-6 degree corrections without coming close to the cars traction limit. And in case you do begin to spin you should be able to correct it, I’ve only had to do a hard swerve once above 100 in my decade+ of driving (yes it was a dog) and my rear stepped out but I counter steered and corrected it (the car didn’t have ESP).

Second, at least apply full braking if you won’t swerve, yes there is risk of rear ending but you should know what’s behind you as an alert driver and if someone’s tailgating you at high speeds you’ve already put yourself at risk, either speed up or slow down or change lanes.

Avoid driving in the right most lane, the further you are from the divider, the more reaction time you have to slow down. I’ve driven thousands of kms on our notorious highways and never hit a dog/animal. Have had multiple stray dogs cross in front of me when I’m at high speed, in most cases hard braking and gentle direction changes are enough (except that one time I mentioned above.)

[Small Bot]

I hear you, AJ56. And your points are very valid.
But I feel that it might not possible in every instance to avoid crashing into dogs specifically. My experience is that cats are more agile and you can see humans better than dogs from a distance, so dogs end up being roadkill more often.
There are sometimes instances where the time you get to react is far too less for you to react. In those cases, you might not have a choice but to slightly slow down and hope the dog survives with minor injuries only. You might also have vehicles behind you and besides you, and you would rather slow down and take the hit with the animal, as compared to losing control and hurting others as well.
I have seen this happen at least twice, where car drivers hard-braked abruptly or swerved to avoid hitting a dog, but hit bikers besides them or got slammed by cars behind them, resulting in injuries to other humans.
These things happen, as long as there are stray animals, and there's no way to come out of it with your morality fully intact.
I'm not, in any way, trying to justify hitting a dog - that might be callousness. But I'm saying that at times, you might not have a choice if you don't want to involve other humans in the accident as well.

[Actuator]

I would like to share an anecdote wherein I narrowly avoided a dog-hit. I was about to embark on a flyover when a dog darted across the road from the merge on the service road. Hard-braked to avoid a collision and was fortuitous not to be rear ended as there was considerable distance between me and the vehicles behind. Was doing around 40-50 kmph so was able to take evasive action without losing control. Unsurprisingly, my trusty old W212 deployed its active bonnet having mistakenly detected a pedestrian crash but was able to make my way home without any troubles. There was no damage to my car and the dog survived as well; just having brushed past the driver's side bumper. All's well that end's well I suppose. From thereon, I've made it a point to be extra cautious at that juncture of my commute to avoid any mishaps.

Our roads are made menacingly treacherous by the presence of such unpredictable variables that can catch even the most defensive and cautious drivers, completely off-guard.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by locusjag

The S-Cross has skidded here on the slushy cement mix. Eventually, they finished laying interlocking stones on top of the cement layer.

Very dangerous to put two wheels on an entirely different surface, at speed.

Even apart from that, the entire manoeuvrer is risky and irresponsible. The two-wheeler has a mixture of skill and luck there. A worse rider might have fallen.

Originally Posted by AJ56

I disagree with many of the posts justifying hitting (and likely killing) the dog above, if I’m driving I’ll do my damned best to avoid hitting any living animal or human, dog or otherwise. If this means my car is totalled so be it, I won’t have the blood of the unfortunate animal on my conscience.

I sympathise. I feel the same. But I was taught otherwise.

Someone above said it takes 5 seconds to react, you shouldn’t be driving if it takes anything over 0.2-0.3 secs max to react (avg alert human reaction time). Even 1 whole second on the road is an eternity.

Hmmm... this one didn't seem possible so it sent me to google.

Of course, lots of search results for driver reaction times, but they all put 0.2-0.3 seconds as being very optimistic.

This page Reaction Times has some good explanation. I'lll select just a few words...

A professional racing driver who is physically fit , gifted in high speed driving and fired with adrenalin can react remarkably quickly, in as little as 0.2 of a second. This represents the time which elapses between the driver spotting a hazard and beginning his action, whether pressing the brake pedal, accelerating or moving the steering wheel.

...

The average motorist is much slower to react: around 0.5 of a second is still good, 0.8 of a second is satisfactory and even one second is not too bad.

Anything longer than a second is beginning to be dangerously slow.

As you say, 1 whole second on the road is an eternity.

Remember that the speed of your reactions can vary considerably; they slow down if you are tired, ill or under stress. If you have to drive when you are feeling at all below par, you must take this into account. Your reaction time might be 0.5 of a second when you are fit, but when you have a heavy cold it could increase to 0.8 of a second. That extra 0.3 of a second makes a tremendous difference to the distance you travel before you start to take avoiding action for a hazard ahead.

There's more, much more, including charts, on that very useful page. Most people, including, perhaps, most T-BHPians, considerably under-estimate their total stopping distance, even at slowish speeds.

Originally Posted by AJ56

People underestimate their own cars handling ability, at 100-120 you can make minor quick and sharp 5-6 degree corrections without coming close to the cars traction limit.

The world is a mishmash of underestimating car ability, overestimating self ability, etc etc. 100km/hr is really not very fast on a good surface.

[WhiteSierra]

Originally Posted by nettooran

Well, I got a video for something similar. These snakes are very flexible I guess. It just slithered off like nothing happened.

https://Youtu.be/Si80S3ELLgo

How did it even survive after duster's FR and RR tyres ran over it?

[corneliu]

Originally Posted by nettooran

Well, I got a video for something similar. These snakes are very flexible I guess. It just slithered off like nothing happened.

There is no way a 2ton vehicle can run over any bone + muscle tissue without causing severe trauma / permanent damage. It's wrong to assume the animal is fine just because it managed to move away. Poor thing, hope it managed to survive.

Looks like the car ran over the region closer to its head/neck, which is why it was able to slither away in the first place (since the rest of the body which primarily propels it was not touched), but if you look closely you can see it struggling to move its head & neck region even while slithering.

[vjbox]

Originally Posted by digitalnirvana

Yeah. Move the carcass off the road. Least one can do. Put a gunny bag or even a newspaper and move the dead animal to the side of the road. Of course if it's safe to do so.

I've seen dead dogs and cats being run over till they're a pile of blood and guts. Grim.

Accidents are accidents but what we do after is up to us.

Yes its the least one could do but the issue is most of the times they get hit/ run over on highways where it is very risky to pull over ( especially on speeding sections/ bends) to inspect the animal. Imagine a car ahead of you hitting an animal which you can't notice and then coming to a sudden halt. If you were tailing him, you won't have any idea and there is a good chance you could rear end him.

[Bigzero]

I think this one happened yesterday or today. An ambitious cornering effort in a Jeep goes bad. Fortunately no major injuries (going by the report ).

Quick action by the villagers to get the vehicle back up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr0F8JKCFhg

[Rohan265]

Originally Posted by AJ56

Someone above said it takes 5 seconds to react, you shouldn’t be driving if it takes anything over 0.2-0.3 secs max to react (avg alert human reaction time). Even 1 whole second on the road is an eternity.

People underestimate their own cars handling ability, at 100-120 you can make minor quick and sharp 5-6 degree corrections without coming close to the cars traction limit. And in case you do begin to spin you should be able to correct it, I’ve only had to do a hard swerve once above 100 in my decade+ of driving (yes it was a dog) and my rear stepped out but I counter steered and corrected it (the car didn’t have ESP).

You bring up some interesting viewpoints. Can you share the research behind 0.2-0.3s maximum for average alert driver reaction time? Its quite different from what I have experienced/studied.

Reaction times are situation-dependent and rely a lot on the event complexity. For e.g purely reflex-based reactions such as stepping on a nail are much shorter (0.2-0.3s). A single stimulus-based reaction e.g. a well-seasoned and prepared batsman predicting and hitting a ball, takes a bit longer (around 0.5s). Driving is a much more complex process. Racing car drivers who have memorised the track and are well-versed in their vehicle controls take about 0.5-0.7s because that is the only thing they are expected to do.
It's not as simple for drivers like us. Regular drivers like us may take anywhere from 1s to up to 2s to react. This is because we simply cannot prepare for everything that can go wrong on the road. An alert and defensive driver with no other thoughts or distractions may fall on the lower end of the range. Crash Reconstructionists around the world usually start with a base reaction time of 1.5s and make adjustments based on the situation at hand.

Full braking may be a good response. But, another factor many ignore is the brake lag. Brakes don't apply instantly. Considering the fluid pressure transfer, a brake lag of 0.2-0.3s is also to be factored in any calculation.

Also, can you elaborate on the 5-6 degree steering corrections? Is this the steering wheel angle or the wheel turning angle? If its the steering wheel angle, is it sufficient to turn the vehicle because that translates only about 0.3-0.4 wheel turning angle? Also, you must be a very-skilled driver considering that you managed to control a fish-tailing vehicle at speeds above 100 kph. These conditions are even beyond some ESP thresholds.

Regarding the main discussion point of choosing to hit an animal or not, depends on the driver's willingness to face the consequences of the decision. I have seen multiple cases where the driver has successfully avoided the animal, but the avoidance has caused the vehicle to yaw and roll over or hit a roadside object or another vehicle, killing the car occupants. Before making a decision to avoid an animal, the driver must take other factors into consideration such as the stability of their own car, safety system usage of all occupants, presence of unsecured load in the car, do the road conditions support a corrective maneuver, what road or roadside objects will the vehicle likely hit due to the avoidance, etc. IMO there are too many variables to consider here. The driver has to decide if the rewards outweigh the risks.

[corneliu]

Originally Posted by vjbox

Yes its the least one could do but the issue is most of the times they get hit/ run over on highways where it is very risky to pull over ( especially on speeding sections/ bends) to inspect the animal. Imagine a car ahead of you hitting an animal which you can't notice and then coming to a sudden halt. If you were tailing him, you won't have any idea and there is a good chance you could rear end him.

Suddenly stopping like this on a highway is obviously dangerous and borderline suicidal.

I think it's implicit that when one is talking about stopping on a highway (regardless of whether you have hit an animal or generally need to stop), one is referring to following the safe protocol of turning the left indicator on, moving over to the hard shoulder, gradually coming to a halt, putting the hazards on, and opening the driver's door only after one is a 100% sure (rear-view mirror check) that there is no traffic coming from behind.

While inspecting the dead/injured animal, yes, one has to be cognizant and extremely careful of oncoming traffic.