Damn Raccoons

[Sinister]

Well on my work to work last night a damn raccoon decided to commit suicide. ran accross the lane. so when it was almost out of my lane it decided to dart back the other way and I got it. definitely not on purpose. It cracked my bumper cover , took one of the filler grills along the bottom and pushed my inner fender guards into my wheel which wore a hole in it..DAMN IT!

[Kamikaze]

That sucks.They don't like me either...luckly no problems with the vibe, but if it makes you feel better I smoked one at about 125mph with my mustang a few years ago.

[Sinister]

Quote, originally posted by Kamikaze »... I smoked one at about 125mph with my mustang a few years ago.Must have been nothing left of him at that speed

[Kamikaze]

I stopped and all I found was fur....after that my friends with trucks would go "hunting" for them...I remember one time this damn Racoon was in the middle of the road and my friend swerved at it to hit it. Then he backed up over it again just to show it you need to respect the mustang...

[engineertwin2]

That's just sick, Kam. Backing up over it shows he was one twisted individual.It sucks when nature damages/destroys our beloved vehicles, but we should still respect nature and all its critters. This mustang thing is just going too far.

[Kamikaze]

Quote, originally posted by engineertwin2 »It sucks when nature damages/destroys our beloved vehicles, but we should still respect nature and all its critters. This mustang thing is just going too far.We were young and stupid... (13 years ago when I was 16) You can't tell me you ever did anything dumb when you were younger?

[VforVIBE]

Quote, originally posted by Kamikaze »We were young and stupid... (13 years ago when I was 16) You can't tell me you ever did anything dumb when you were younger? I think that goes a little beyond dumb. And the worst part is, you sound proud of it.

[altimar]

I also hit one a few years ago with my Saturn at 70Mph. The darn thing darted across the interstate overpass and went perfectly under my right wheel. No damage at all, needed a hose though. I hate hitting animals, but I'm certainly not going to injure myself or damage my car in order to save them. The only animals I actually try to hit are squirrels, but they deserve payback after what they did to my vegetable garden last year. Seriously, they're kind of overpopulated down here. Haven't successfully "hunted" one yet though.

[sloth]

I hate raccoons. We have a pet door in our garage that we leave open. Feed the cats in the garage. My bedroom sits right over the garage, you can hear the dang things dumping the water and eating the food and trying to get into everything else. Then my wife gets mad, because I wake her up.....Don't want the first sound she hears to be a shotgun blast.

[VforVIBE]

Quote, originally posted by sloth »I hate raccoons. We have a pet door in our garage that we leave open. Feed the cats in the garage. My bedroom sits right over the garage, you can hear the dang things dumping the water and eating the food and trying to get into everything else. Then my wife gets mad, because I wake her up.....Don't want the first sound she hears to be a shotgun blast.FYI: Raccoons LOVE cat food... We had the same problem, move the food, lose the Raccoons.

[ToolGuy]

Sucks that this happened! Better than a deer I suppose... Just not enough area for them to rome since we develop every square inch of ground in the US. I am not a huge animal lover and we do own a cat but as I get older I have a different outlook with animals wild or not. I have never hit one but have seen others on their cell phones not even notice. I mean come on, that duck in the road is a slow moving duck! At 35-45 MPH, you can stop in time for these slow mover types but they are not even aware! I almost hit a deer in my Corvette last week. And if that happens it is not a pretty site for anyone since the body is thrown into the car because the hood is like a ramp for it!

[engineertwin2]

Quote, originally posted by Kamikaze »We were young and stupid... (13 years ago when I was 16) You can't tell me you ever did anything dumb when you were younger? I did do dumb stuff. I didn't mean to outright chastise you, just saying it was a little crude.For the record, I in no way condone putting human lives at risk for animal lives (i.e. unsafe stopping or swerving). It's when you back up to get it again that gets me.Anyways, most of the dumb stuff I did involved computers, football, and tennis. I was a complete nerd in high school and college - no parties, no drinking, no nothing. I didn't sneak out at night..

[waveresponder]

funny you mention this...I hit one a couple weeks ago myself...since i have dual license plates mounted on the front however they acted a lil as a protector and the raccoon bounded off as i drove over it..kept the car straight...tires avoided its body....and supposedly my friend driving behind me said he got up and ran off into the woods....i havnt really looked at my bumper real good...all i know is the lower license plate that says emt is lil bit bent with dents since its of lower strenght aluminum....i was only going about 35-40mph and didnt have time to stop since it was on a hill, darted out of nowhere and slight curve...at least my friend behind me didnt have to swerve to avoid it ...lolguess you could say thats one lucky raccoon...or lucky vibe owner...lolI feel your moment of terror Sinister...haha

[Kamikaze]

Quote, originally posted by engineertwin2 »I did do dumb stuff. I didn't mean to outright chastise you, just saying it was a little crude.It's all good... I come from an area with a lot of hunters... deer, squirrels, pheasants... some of them, it's anything that moves...At the time it was funny, but I can see now how I would wince at the idea.

[Whelan]

I took out a little beaver lookin thing on the highway doin about 70. Dang thing ran right in front of me, I had no time to move and it was smalle enough. Little critter made it rught under the car until it got to the differential for the AWD in back then "THUD" I must have clocked it in the head cause it 360'd like a laid down pinwheel to the side of the road.

[Sinister]

Thanks for feeling my pain guys.. I would have never thought about looking for any damage as I wouldn't have thought there would have been any but when I heard a weird flapping in the wind as I drove I knew I had better look.

[WaveAction]

sorry to hear..i've hit things with my other car but no animals..well accept a bird that flew at me and hit the front fender lol..i never did stop cause i saw it coming too..suprisingly no damage

[futureviber]

what about mercy kill? When you barely get it and think it is probably suffering. My boyfriend just barely got one in his truck one night. he turned around to see if it had run off or was still in the road. He had to hit it again so that it died rather than latting it lay there suffering.i hate hitting animals. Its the worst when there si nothing that I can do... like it runs under my back tire! what the heck!

[Whelan]

I should have taken a picture of this one but I got to my fiance's one afternoon, we go outside to the car and she is like, (removed) is that? Looked like a big leaf or something was stuck in the lower grille. Turns out a bird caught up. The head was through the grating and the rest was stuck on the outside. That was pretty funny but sad at the same time.

[Sputnik]

I ran over a family of them once. It was 1 in the morning, on a dark twisty highway and about 5 were hanging out in my lane as I came round a corner doing 90. I felt so bad. I only saw one body the next day though.

[moongdss]

I did something even more horrid... to my mechanic!one night, I ran over a deer carcass (already good and ripe) in the highway in my Nissan Altima and knocked a rusted part of the exhaust open. The next day when I looked under the car to see the damage, there were fur and innards trailing from the exhaust. EW!I drove it to the garage and put it in for "some mysterious exhaust noise"I'm sure the mechanic really hated me that day.