Driving down the road on my usual morning commute to the university where I work, a pheasant suddenly flew out of the borrow ditch across the front end of my vehicle. Scared the bejeebers out of me. I swerved and luckily avoided hitting the bird with the grill of my card. After a few choice words . . . of the profane type . . . I proceeded on down the road.
Now you have to understand, pheasants and I have had many encounters through the years. Most of those encounters resulted in no dead birds and no damage to the cars I was driving. They were a draw that cost me nothing more than a speeding heartbeat and those profane choice words. On the other hand, there have been those encounters where there were definite losers.
One Sunday morning my youngest son—who was in the early stages of elementary school—and I were driving to another community where I was preaching. We were on the backroads of Nebraska—lots of dirt and dust. Suddenly out of the borrow ditch a pheasant flew out of the weeds and was blasted with the grill of the car. A huge puff and cloud of feathers exploded across the windshield in a spectacular fashion. The pheasant had exploded on impact. My son’s eyes grew wide, and he exclaimed, “Cool! Let’s do it again!” Luckily there was no damage to the car. The pheasant, well it was everywhere—especially the front grill of the car. The pheasant lost that battle.
Another time, down the road from where we live now, prior to moving to Montana, several of the kids and I were on a house-hunting expedition in hopes of finding an acceptable and affordable abode for our move to Montana. As we were heading down the two-lane highway, as usual a pheasant was flushed from the borrow ditch. Flew across the front of the car, hit the grill with a loud thump, and rolled on over to the other side of the road. It was deader than a doorknob. The grill was mangled and busted. Damaged. Thankfully a few zip ties held it together until we could get back to Nebraska and replace the grill for several hundreds of dollars. In this case there were two losers . . . the pheasant was toast and I was out of money to replace the grill.
That near-encounter with the pheasant on my morning commute brought back those memories and others. I guess the pheasant must have triggered some sort of PTSD –Pheasant Trauma Stress Disorder—reaction in me. It got me thinking about all the times I have hit or nearly hit some sort of critter while driving down the road. I have had a lot of close encounters with the critter kind while driving. You don’t live in rural areas without experiencing such encounters on a regular basis. It is part of the charm of rural living. And I have had more than my fair share of encounters with critters on the road . . . some I have hit, the majority I have missed. In all of them there came heart-pounding fear and profane words.
The flashbacks were of deer, pheasants, raccoons, opossums, a moose once, bears, bison, all sorts of small birds, dogs, cats, turtles, squirrels and ground squirrels, an antelope . . . some I have hit, most I have avoided. In all . . . my blood pressure was raised, and a blue streak was revealed. Usually that would be it and I go on with life as usual, but something about that brush of near catastrophe got me thinking . . . why in the world did the chicken cross the road? For that matter, why does any critter cross the road? It is an age-old question of life. Inquiring minds want to know.
I want to know because over the years those mashups with critters have cost me several thousand dollars in repairs. Three suicidal deer that found their demise by running into vehicles I was driving . . . thousands in repairs. A family of raccoons that were crossing the road, stopped, flipped me off, and were smashed cost me a radiator. Pheasants took out my grills. And it all took place as they were attempting to cross the road. Why? Why were they trying to cross the road!
Such encounters of the critter kind are not as uncommon as one might imagine . . . especially in Montana. According to State Farm (Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”) research, only West Virginia ranks higher than Montana when it comes to these vehicle and critter encounters. West Virginia is number one, Montana is number two. Here are the top seven:
West Virgina (1 in 37)
Montana (1 in 47)
Pennsylvania (1 in 51)
South Dakota (1 in 53)
Michigan (1 in 54)
Wisconsin (1 in 57)
Iowa (1 in 58)
I would confer with these statistics as I have lived in two of the seven. Most of my critter mashing has occurred in Montana, Nebraska, and Iowa. But the fact is, if you drive long enough you will hit something.
It is risky business this critter road crossing. The Institute of Highway Safety’s research states that there are at least 150 deaths and over one billion dollars in vehicle damage occurs on an annual basis from 1.5 million deer collisions. The Animal People Newsletter research points out that lots of critters get hit by vehicles in the United States:
41 million squirrels
26 million cats
22 million rats
19 million opossums
15 million raccoons
6 million dogs
Maybe the cats got their chasing the rats across the road . . . maybe not. Who knows?
Here in Montana the Insurance Information Institute gives a similar breakdown of the road crossing demise of the state’s critters:
88,440 dogs
42,539 raccoons
19,668 coyotes
15,104 turkeys
12,561 bears
9,212 cows
4964 elk
2,470 moose
2,166 wolves
8,927 hogs
1,750 bobcats
813 turtles
Thankfully, I confess, I can state that I have never hit a coyote (though no one in Montana would blame me if I did), turkeys, bear, cows, elk, moose (though I had a near-miss), wolves, hogs, bobcats, or turtle. It seems that I reserve my all encounters with deer, raccoons, and birds.
That is a lot of animals . . . a lot of critters attempting to get across the road. Despite it all, no one can answer the question of “why did the chicken (or any critter for that matter), cross the road? At least for me they haven’t given me any acceptable answer . . . and the critters are dead. Dead critters can’t speak.
As you can see . . . it is a BIG question. A BIG question with as many answers as there are critters made into roadkill. It has been that way since the first critter attempted to cross the road. I think that question is asked in the Bible—if not all holy scripture across the gamut of religions. I think it was one of the questions Moses asked God at the burning bush, but it got left out by the original editors of the Old Testament. Or maybe it was a question asked by one of Jesus’ disciples to their master—Peter maybe, he was always asking Jesus questions. Whatever . . . the question has been around forever.
Of course, the standard answer to the question is “to get to the other side.” Duh . . . but, why! Someone said that this was a fairly clever double entendre since it had to do with the chicken dying and going to the “other side”. But, why? Why did the chicken want to go to the other side. Why does any critter want to cross the road?
We will never know. Dead critters—like dead people—don’t speak. I just wish like heck they would quit trying to cross the road when I am driving down the road. For the sake of my vehicles, insurance rate, and wallet. For their sake too . . . I am sure whatever is luring them across the road is not worth becoming a splatter on the highway. Unless . . . as I have often wondered . . . they really do have a death wish to pass on over to the “other side”. Only they and God know for certain. I just wish someone would let me in on the punchline.
