Re: [a/s] Re: [a/s)Wild life on the road

[Susi and John Burchard <saluqi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just drove about three thousand miles (Phoenix - Colorado Springs - Lexington
KY - Little Rock - Phoenix) with four or five Salukis in the MH and "deer
whistles" installed.  No sign of restlessness, neither in my seasoned travelling
crew nor in the geriatric rescue case I transported from Lexington to Phoenix. 
Maybe the MH is better sound insulated? or maybe it is just noisier <G> ...

> I only drive in the daylight so I can see large animals on the side of the
> road... I can't imagine why anyone  would want to drive their trailer after
> dark... because of the wildlife and there's no views.... the whole point of
> this exercise (for me) is to see the USA.

Well I agree with that but sometimes (too often) I have to get
somewhere by a certain time and in that case I can't always avoid night
driving.  I have halogen driving lights and use them whenever possible on the
back roads.  You can get a pretty good "feel" for where deer are likely to
cross, and be extra alert in those places.  A couple of times I've had to brake
to avoid a deer that chose the last moment to cross the road ... but
(knock wood) have never hit one yet ... in this country that is.  Hit two in
Germany, long long years ago.  One leaped out from behind a tree and landed
squarely on the front lid of my Volkswagen Beetle ... no earthly way to avoid
that ... it was wide open field on both sides and the deer was apparently lying
down behind the only tree in sight, maybe two feet from the edge of the
pavement.  It was already airborne when I saw it and landed squarely on the
car.  Luckily it did not come in through the windshield, I wasn't going very
fast.  The deer suffered a broken hind leg and had to be tracked down by hunters
the next day (I was a licensed hunter and so duly notified the hunter on whose
terrain the deer was hit).  On the other occasion a roe deer was evidently
running away from something else and emerged from the roadside brush at top
speed, crashing into the side of my Alfa Romeo GT Sprint Veloce just behind the
front wheel.  That time I wasn't driving slowly <G> but hey, it was around noon
on a bright sunny day when deer are supposed to be resting in the woods ... the
deer was stone dead and the Alfa, oh deer ... well, there was a pretty good ding
in the sheet metal behind the wheel well but no structural damage at all and the
tin was easy to fix.

I have seen a couple of deer accidents on the Interstates here, in the middle of
the day, where a group of deer evidently got panicked and were running all over
the place.  Several of them ended up running straight into the side of an 18
wheeler travelling at 70 mph.  When they panic they don't look where they are
going.

One of my regular runs is between here and Medicine Bow WY.  The stretch from
Rifle CO to I-80, via Meeker and Craig CO and Baggs WY, is prime hunting country
and you are guaranteed to see any number of deer, elk and antelope alongside the
road.  Drive with GREAT caution, especially at night and around dusk or dawn! 
The most dangerous sections are where the road runs along the side of a valley,
with hills on one side of the road and a stream on the other side.  Deer are
constantly crossing to and from their drinking places.