Kangaroo's , swerve or not

[TI3VOM]

Many years ago, one of my mothers friends swerved to miss a kangaroo and ended up hitting a tree.
Her family and friends have missed her ever since!

[bogan_vk]

only once have i had a kangaroo jump in front of me , it was on a dirt road in the middle of the night was sitting on around 110 i just hit the brakes slowly to try to knock of as much speed as possible, i didnt swerve as that would have been deadly and luckily i missed it (just!) ,it definatley woke me up though.

[KimiClaire]

I was always told not to swerve but if I have enough time I'll break. Ive had an incident where the was two kangaroos, one on either side of the road, in the middle of each lane, with just enough room for my commodore between them, I drove straight through them because I'd rather have door damage then front damage but neither jumped at the car thank god

[acarmody]

its not just that though, when you break hard obviously your car dips in the front, which means more chance of skip ending up in your passenger seat, where as he might have only destroyed the radiator if you didnt break.

If your car dips more than a couple of inches than its time to replace your suspension.

You hit a kangaroo at 100km/h it going to do some big damage, you slam on the anchors and hit it at 40km/h than damage is substantially less.

[We11eR]

my boss swerved like 2 weeks ago in a colorado, rolled the car 4 times, its a write off. he survived literally by a foot (big tree almost in roll path) although my best friend and her uncle were in a vs when they hit a roo, it came through the windscreen and landed between the driver and passenger seats it blocked off the passengers seat belt so kim couldnt unclip it and run, her uncle pulled out a knife and took to kims seat belt he removed his as she escaped the car, as he was reaching for the door handle the roo began kicking and clawed his throat. he died in his vs, didnt swerve. so either way you never know i suppose hit is safer (just) i hit them, break if i see them and dont drive along the highway at night unless there is no moon out.

[dirt drifter]

something i should have added earlier.. if u are going to try and dodge a roo or anything else, i dont know how this works but YOU GO WHERE YOU LOOK. look at the roo, hit it.. look at the bit of road with no roo on it, thats where u go.

i wouldn't have clipped my last one if i took my own advice, half asleep at 2am just out of wallangarra on the qld/nsw border one jumps out on my right. i braked and swerved into the oncoming lane (no traffic for miles around) looking at this roo out the corner of my eye, briefly locked the front wheels = front end pushed straight ahead and bang! just clipped it, needed new passenger headlight and $700 worth of panelwork.

what still pisses me right off to this day is that i had another good 1.5 - 2m of tarmac to play with, if i was looking at that instead of the roo i would have sailed straight past it

[bloomers]

Brake and keep it straight. Unfortunatly at the time that the roo appears, reflexes will decide what happens.

I drove from Canberra to Batemans Bay on the weekend and there was around a dozen dead wombats by the road. Now they are something I would not like to hit.

[304runner]

Saying what you should do or would do is totally different to what would actually happen in real time. It reminds me of a time I was driving along a dirt road with a friend just after dusk, when a rabbit ran out in front of my 4x4....

My friend who was with me is one of those chicks who stops every time she see's a dead Kangaroo or something and checks its pouch for a joey and what not, so running over a Rabbit, squashed or not, she would frik'n force me to stop and take it to a vet... Any ways, the rabbit went right under my truck and somehow missed everything??

But she started to laugh, which was random for her after a situation like this and when I asked what the hell she was laughing at she said "when you ran directly over the rabbit you lifted both you feet and brought your knees to your chest"

Bottom line is, I wouldn't normally break or swerve for a rabbit, but subliminally I knew I had to do something coz of my friend next to me and after realizing the truck was right on top of this furry little pest I lifted my size 12's...lol, wtf?

[Troy711]

Last one I had to avoid was at 5am, I swerved at 130, missed it by a whisker and my heart didn't slow down for about 20 kays. I think I has to scrape out a chunk of poo from my undies when I got to work.

[detox_nath83]

Try and post em in your commo

[ucwepn]

old mate of mine hit a roo in his gemini it got its head stuck in the grille and it was screaming and thrashing its legs around everywhere, mate got the hatchet out of the boot and chopped off its head to get it out.

[Shorty33]

tricky question: but, I don't think there is a correct, theoretical answer. Be alert, be aware of what's behind you, etc. I think braking, to reduce impact, is basic common sense. Swerving would depend on what other road-users there are.

There is one stretch of the Stuart Highway (in a 130 kph zone) inhabited by cute little "agile wallabies", and there are lots of them. At dawn and dusk, they'll stand a few metres from the edge of the bitumen, where you can see them easily enough, and when you almost past them, they'll suicide. All they have to do is stand still for another two seconds, or jump the other way ... but, no, they choose to jump in front of me.
I've taken out one on about 50% of the trips I've done through there, but no serious damage to my car.

Further south, around Alice Springs, you get the big red kangaroos: you don't see many of them. They are much smarter, and you see very few dead'uns: so they must have sussed out the road-safety situation.

The Landsborough Highway in Queensland goes through some beautiful country, but I reckon there's a dead 'roo every 500 metres, and a lot of them are on the bitumen, not beside it, so the highway sometimes becomes a slalom course. I've hit dead ones, but never a live one, on the Landsborough. Last December, I cleaned up half-a-dozen cane toads near Longreach.

[elmaso]

Try and post em in your commo

clearly skippy wasn't as smart as he should have been.

[acex1138]

i hit my first roo two nights ago.

on way from goldcoast to pt macquirie the stupid gps decided to re-route me for no reason and without telling me, was taking the pacific highway and it starts to bitch i have to make a right turn.... i make it and think its avoiding a town and 45m later im thinking stuff this i havnt seen any other cars on this highway in the last 30...

Look at the gps and it just looks like its sending me through another two towns around hte pacific highway so im like whatever ill roll with it. and its pissing down by now.

well the fun part started when the roads were washed out........im talking fully flooded. gps keeps telling me theres fuel at the next town and im sitting on half a tank as im thinking #### it ill go back the way I came atleast sleep on the pacific highway until its cleared up... get to next town... no fuel station. so half a tank left and I tell the GPS get me back to the pacific highway. So it decides to send me through a thing called the Kempsey-a(something long trail) which turns out half way down it is a 4wd trail..... something you should deffinately never take a WRX down...... especially when its raining and flooding at 11pm at night.

Full of wild life learned that owls dont like to move and they will just sit in the road. 3 hours of bullshit later, nearly dying a few times from falling rocks, bits of the road getting washed away and a piece of the road dislocating itself and getting washed into the river a few seconds after i've driven on it... i then have another 30 minutes of no road. and then 20m outside of the nearest spit of civilization i start seeing roos everywhere. I slow down and drive even more cautious.

I get through all this, and just before I hit the town i see a roo on the side of the road minding his own business. im doing about 60 then at the last milisecond the idiot decides to leap with all his might across the road through my car. clips front skirt. Stop the car look for the roo cant see him anyhwere... get the maglight... cannot see a roo 50m around the car.

look at the front of the car expecting to see blood and guts and tons of damage...... no blood no guts... front of the car just smells like a smelly kangaroo..... front left spotlight has come out a bit, pop it back in and i notice its broken a clip or two on the front skirt..... not much damage at all..... open the bonnet and theres shitloads of kangaroo hair on the grill filter.... thats it..

in all honesty mate, if i had of swerved there I would have either planted the car in the river, skidded and died, or hit the embankment onthe other side.

Wouldnt swerve on your life.

[elmaso]

shit man, didn't have to fit you life story into it haha

but really, have you ever thought of writing novels?
you have an awesome talent for stretching stories out, really, dude! lol

[Reaper]

Brake and keep it straight. Unfortunatly at the time that the roo appears, reflexes will decide what happens.

I drove from Canberra to Batemans Bay on the weekend and there was around a dozen dead wombats by the road. Now they are something I would not like to hit.

I hit a wombat with my VS about 15 years ago. They are probably not as dangerous as a roo but they made a hell of a mess underneath. Imagine hitting a garbage can sized beef roast at 100km/h.

Reaper

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

There is a legal answer and self preservation answer.

The legal answer is not to swerve, it is actually illegal to swerve for an animal on the road. If you swerve and hit something else causing damage to either a person or someone elses property, you are at fault and will be charged. No insurance yada yada yada.

The self preservation answer is to do what you can safely. If you can swerve safely and avoid an incident, then by all means, swerve. But the best thing to do is to brake first, wash off as much speed as you can before impact. Braking first will also transfer weight to the front wheels allowing the tyres to bite into the road and making swerving that much safer.

If you do choose to hit the roo, hit it dead centre, less chance of the car changing direction from the impact and rolling anyway.

[Crisis63]

Its no different to any other hazard and with all hazards you do the best you can. Ideally it is best to avoid the collision but if “swerving” means a violent maneuver where the car is in danger of being uncontrollable you have achieved nothing. Running into it poses the danger of it coming through the windscreen depending on your speed or similarly unsettling your car and perhaps rendering it out of control. Jamming on the brakes is probably the best option if no one is traveling close behind you and especially with abs.
You should generally know if someone is behind you given the circumstances of kangaroo strikes. The unique problem with roos is they can appear quite suddenly from out of no where.
The best strategy is to avoid the locations and times when they are prevalent and if that’s not possible drive slower at these times.
Of course dirt roads change the game again.
I’ve been lucky with several near misses but each time I rekon I have reacted a bit differently.

[Crisis63]

I hit a wombat with my VS about 15 years ago. They are probably not as dangerous as a roo but they made a hell of a mess underneath. Imagine hitting a garbage can sized beef roast at 100km/h.

Reaper

I’ve seen them as road kill and always thought I would rather hit a kangaroo. Big bump that. I rekon the Emu would be the road kill of choice. All skinny legs and the bulk of it goes over the top! ;-)

[Reaper]

I’ve seen them as road kill and always thought I would rather hit a kangaroo. Big bump that. I rekon the Emu would be the road kill of choice. All skinny legs and the bulk of it goes over the top! ;-)

If it goes over the top that's great. The problem is it's 50/50 that it winds up thru the windscreen in the front seat with you. That is bad, particularly if said animal isn't dead and is thrashing around next to you.

Reaper

[MikeCuzzy]

Where I live there is lots of animals generally they are mostly Kangaroos, but there are also wombats, cows, deer so forth - real big game.

Generally I swerve for all of them, as I'm kinda used to it happening these days and I wouldn't have a car about 6 times over by now. Most recently I had to avoid a cow, no it didn't jump out in front of me :P But the corner was blind and there was a cow just round it standing in the road - not something I wanted to hit - so I swerve to miss even at 80kph on a bend. Roos are the same, generally the areas where they pop up are closer to town, so I am usually doing 60kph or so, much easier to swerve. Wombats, those things can be hard to avoid you can't always see them, especially if there's crap on the road. Deer - avoid, you don't want one of those things in the car in the passangers seat...

Generally this is all between 1am and 5am.

I’ve been lucky with several near misses but each time I rekon I have reacted a bit differently.

I've reacted differently with people in the car, I had a near miss with a roo pop out of the scrub - with the girlfriend in the car - served and put my side of the car where the roo was likely to hit. And when I'm by myself I try to protect the car.

[Huntington]

Never hit one, had plenty of near misses tho, most annoying was the trip from alice back to vic. car fully loaded up, could only just see out the back window. boxes of clothes and food and all that living away from home stuff.
near dark, wifey asleep in the passanger seat, i slammed the anchors down and missed the roo, everything in the back seat ended up in the front seat tho. and to make things worse the wife woke up so i had to listen to her talking for the next few hours.

same trip a truckie indicates to me that its safe to pass so i put the boot in and get almost up to his cabin when a wave of red mush flew over the car, for half a seciond i caught the white as a ghost look on the truckies face, a horse had run out in front of him, being a road train, he knew to just keep going, his bull bar liquified it. took ages to wash that shit off the VT.
thank god i hadnt passed him 2 seconds earlier or i would have hit it, i doubt i would have fared as well.
stopped and had a calm down ciggie with the truckie, he tells me the horses and camels are worse than the roos up there, #### that!

[acex1138]

shit man, didn't have to fit you life story into it haha

but really, have you ever thought of writing novels?
you have an awesome talent for stretching stories out, really, dude! lol

short story = yeah hit a roo doing 60. dont swerve (people are all like - dude u hit a roo. dude. why not swerve did u not have tons of space, where the hell where u, why wuz you there, dude like my sisters cuzins aunts ex bf totally swerved coz thats like what u alwayz do / endless questions / comments ).

long answer = ah yeah cool story bruz.

[wraith]

What's left of the lightforce spotties that were on the bullbar.

[DAKSTER]

I said earlier swerve, but it really depends on the situation. If you have time to swerve, sure. If you dont, a sudden heave on the steering wheel will kill you.
Its a gamble, you are trying to outguess an animal that has never learnt to guess.

If you think you cant avoid the roo, wash off as much speed as possible and aim for it. Dead centre is the second safest option. The safest option of course is not to hit it at all, so if you have time to do it safely, swerve, and hope that it doesnt jump back into your path as they often do.

I've spent most of my life driving Landcruisers with steel bullbars and just ignoring roos. These days, in cars, I've learnt to try to avoid hitting them.

Check out the fairmont I posted earlier in this thread.. 60kmh and the roo slid over the windscreen and roof.. you can see its body shape imprinted in the bonnet. It set the airbags off, the car was a writeoff. 100kmh instead of 60 and we were dead, I have no doubt. He was at least 5 ft tall but I didnt see him at all, I was just driving along and suddenly the airbags went off.. its pretty frightening. If I had seen him, I would have swerved.