Welp, I just had my first ever animal strike.

"If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent" (essextee) 07/23/2020 at 01:20 • Filed to: hour rule i guess

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Skunk. Was on track to swerve around it until it abruptly turned around. Clean hit, no damage to car. Just a bruised conscious and a lingering odor. What a deeply unpleasant experience.

lone_liberal > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:30

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I think the bruised conscious is normal even when there is nothing you could have done. I felt it  the first two times I hit an animal and those were birds.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:32

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Seems pretty lucky. Live animals for me have only been dozens of squirrels and rabbits. There’s endless amounts of them here and they’re all suicidal. I’ve hit a racoon and a deer before but both were already dead. Many close calls with live deer for sure. I’ve also hit a few birds, those I consider skill almost. The damn things can fly and I’m stuck on the ground!

notsomethingstructural > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:34

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I didn’t realize animals could form unions

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:40

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Ouch, that’s not a fun one to hit.

I hate hitting animals. Haven’t hit many, but they’re always pretty sad. The first one was a squirrel in my old Caprice, I pulled over, got out, and cried. The second was a fawn in my mom and dad’s van when towing a trailer on a camping trip at about 3A with my entire family inside. Missed the mother deer and a row of fawns by seemingly inches to have only clipped one. That one sucked for a lot of reasons, but at least the fawn died from the impact and the repairs to the van were only about $800 at the time.

The third and fourth were in the same rental car one day apart. This all happened in a circa 2009 Kia Sportage that I dubbed “the gutless wonder” on a trip to the Grand Canyon. Both hits were birds, which I had never hit before or since. The first of these two was at highway speed on SR-64 in Arizona between I-40 and the Grand Canyon. The second was two days later on I-40 westbound at highway speed somewhere west of Williams within Arizona. Still have no clue why that car liked to kill birds, but it got a new nickname out of it: “The gutless wonder, slayer of birds ”.

MrDakka > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:43

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You are lucky. I once had to help my roommate clean chunks of coyote out of this car.

Just when you think you got everything, there’ s another piece lodged in the cracked fascia or bumper.

SmugAardvark > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:46

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Yeah, skunk smell is rather unpleasant. If the smell is inside your car, I would consider replacing the cabin air filter at some point.

The worst for me: Hitting a seven foot alligator, then struggling to get the car home, being so exhausted that you don’t even want to deal with it, then waking up the next morning with the smell of much of what was once a large reptile gummed up across the entire underbody of your S2000. Luckily, the bumpers were torn off, made hosing off the corners slightly easier. But it still took a pressure washer at the body shop to get the rest off.

I also once hit a bat in that same S2000, but it lived. And when I realized it was still alive, I nearly peed out of fear.

pip bip - choose Corrour > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 01:49

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No deer strikes?

dtg11 - is probably on an adventure with Clifford > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 02:01

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Living in the midwest and driving on a lot of backroads, I’ve hit more than my fair share of animals. List includes a deer, a raccoon, 2 pheasants, a hawk, about 9 finches/sparrows/etc, 2 squirrels, and a rat. Other than a chipped windshield and bumper that wouldn’t quite go back into alignment, no real damage. Raccoon and dear were both grazing hits, no injuries to the animals.   

Bylan - Hoarder of LS400's > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 03:58

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Sounds like you got off pretty easy, poor skunk though. I’ve dodged quite a few opossums, raccoons, and a goose once. My big floppy LS is actually quite nimble when it absolutely has to be.

I’ve also hit a few critters. One of the first was a skunk, and I had to power wash the underside of my car when the smell hadn’t subsided after 2 days. There was hair.

I also hit a bird once. It was eating something in the ditch along a 2-lane rural road, and decided to take flight abruptly JUST as i passed by. 0 seconds to react, went directly into my front grill. Zero visual damage, but the hood safely latch (the secondary springy thing you have to reach under to rele ase) snapped clean off. And that secondary release is unobtanium.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 04:38

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Here's me thinking you'd run over a Swedish Fish...

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 04:42

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I gave up counting the animal death my various vehicles have caused a long time ago.

My one rule though...never swerve. Never swerve. 

My bird IS the word > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 06:44

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A deer hit my dad's car once. As in, he stopped to avoid a deer, and a second deer ran into the side of his car, dented it, flipped over the hood, then kept running.

Sovande > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 08:41

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No points for the first one, but the next will count! You get extra points if you can run over a bird. It’s not easy, but it can be done. I got a pigeon once. Hitting squirrels is good too, sometimes the little fellers will get spun up into the air, and that’s fun to watch. I ran over a snake not long ago and while it was great, it lacked a bit in technical skill since it was just stretched across the road.  You haven’t lived until you have run over a box turtle (even better on a riding mower!).  I limit my road-killing to smaller animals unless the car is due to be replaced - then it’s out in the country sniping deer with a 4000 pound missle.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 09:01

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I got a couple squirrels during the New England Squirrelpocalypse of 2018. It was basically impossible to not hit at least a couple if you were driving on the highways that summer.

The real annoying one was the raccoon I got last fall. 1500 miles on the car at the time and it cracked the driver’s side corner of the bumper pretty bad. The crack was mostly on the underside of the bumper so I just secured it with some superglue and left it instead of chasing insurance. Still sucks to hit something on only the second highway trip in the car.

onlytwowheels > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 09:26

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That skunk scent will last for a few weeks. No amount of car washes with under wash is going to eliminate it. It is always unfortunate when you do all that is possible to avoid a critter only for them to reverse direction. 

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Sovande 07/23/2020 at 09:56

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I did a track day at Thompson Speedway in CT. The road course at Thompson didn’t exist for a long time until it was rebuilt around 2014 but while it was gone the turtles had moved in. They like to wander out onto the track and they were chilling in the second to last corner during my second session on the track. It was fine, apex slightly later to avoid the turtles on entry and it was no issue. That was until someone hit one if the turtles near the end of the session. Turtle guts are super slippery. Came into the corner, noted that the turtle was gone, tried to turn in, and the front end of the car just slid about half the width of the track before finally finding traction.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 07/23/2020 at 10:05

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Wow lucky, I almost ran over a baby deer last night, I would have been emotionally devastated if that had happened. Hey now you get to wash your car in tomato juice and vinegar to get the odor out.