Modern Buddy

I like to ride at night, my neighborhood has a lot of post oaks and no street lights. About 2 months ago I wiped out on my Evo 2x power board trying to avoid hitting a possum, last night I almost hit one on my Buddy. I see them most nights and they are almost always in the middle of the road. You would think they are easy to see with a PIAA HS1 but our roads are blacktop and most of them the tips of their fur are black so it becomes perfect camouflage on a blacktop road. We also have an overpopulation problem with squirrels, "evil black-eyed deviled tree rats." I've come close to hitting one of them too, they like to play chicken.

Not to start a morbid post but has anyone had an experience hitting an animal on their scooter? And did it cause you to wreck?

BANNER2054 wrote:I like to ride at night, my neighborhood has a lot of post oaks and no street lights. About 2 months ago I wiped out on my Evo 2x power board trying to avoid hitting a possum, last night I almost hit one on my Buddy. I see them most nights and they are almost always in the middle of the road. You would think they are easy to see with a PIAA HS1 but our roads are blacktop and most of them the tips of their fur are black so it becomes perfect camouflage on a blacktop road. We also have an overpopulation problem with squirrels, "evil black-eyed deviled tree rats." I've come close to hitting one of them too, they like to play chicken.

Not to start a morbid post but has anyone had an experience hitting an animal on their scooter? And did it cause you to wreck?

a buddy should be able to mow down a squirrel with no problem. prolly feels like a speed bump.

I'm too lazy to look up the post and link to it but somebody on here got a bat stuck in thier helmet while riding home one night. Got pictures and everything. Also, I'm pretty sure that they didn't crash.

chas wrote:I'm too lazy to look up the post and link to it but somebody on here got a bat stuck in thier helmet while riding home one night. Got pictures and everything. Also, I'm pretty sure that they didn't crash.

Okay, I had to find that... and here it is:
viewtopic.php?t=18723

BANNER2054 wrote:Not to start a morbid post but has anyone had an experience hitting an animal on their scooter? And did it cause you to wreck?

Not on my scooter, but on my bicycle: a groundhog ran out of the long grass right in front of me, and there was no room to stop or swerve. I went ass over teakettle (helmet and gloves did their job), and my glasses were never found. The groundhog did not fare as well as I did.

h/t AlienMeatSack

We have a pair of racoons that live in the sewers on our block.

If I hit them, I would surely wreck. they're huge!

I have hit a ground hog on my 750 yamaha. It did move the bike over quite a bit, but I managed to stay upright, but to be fair I do have alot of dirt bike experience. So, they may have helped. A squirrel? just run 'em over if he is that dumb. LOL...Possum might be a handful on a 10" tire. If you do hit one, just try to ride "up and over" no brakes!... good luck and keep an eye out.

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I haven't yet. Living in somewhat rural Wisconsin, night time's riding biggest distraction is animals. Squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, raccoons, possums, deer, turkeys, foxes. I see them all the time.

I'll usually slow down a little and just keep going straight (just like I would in a car). If I'm slow enough to swerve, I might, but you never know which way that little rascal is gonna try to bolt. You're better off hitting something at a lower speed than trying to swerve and land in a ditch (could be a tree there, barbwire, etc) or into another vehicles front end. That holds true in a car and I'm assuming it's the same on a bike.

I figure the chances of that animal lining up with my wheels as I pass by are quite minimal. I can't count the amount of times I was SURE I was going to run over one in my car, just to see it bolt into the trees in my rear-view.
~~

Only once. I hit a chipmunk at 60mph. Not under the tire but with the bottom of the bike. I noticed the little guy did not die but was suffering in the middle of the road. I did a u-turn and went back to end his suffering. I felt bad doing it but knew it was the compassionate thing to do.

I ran over a opossum in the car one night, right under the tire. Felt like I ran over a boulder. If you hit one of them on your Buddy it would launch you. Stay alert.

My friend hit a raccoon on friday night at Amerivespa this summer. He went down and banged up the scooter (Vespa smallframe) and got an ambulance ride out of it, broken collarbone and some road rash. He was wearing a full-face and armored jacket and felt that it could have been a lot worse if he hadn't. Luckily he was insured and neither he nor the bike were beyond repair.

The scooter wasn't too bad. I'd agree, if you hit a squirrel and just kept your cool you'd probably be fine but a cat/dog/raccoon/opossum could go either way depending on the size of the bike and tires, how you react, the angle you hit it and road conditions and such.

Had a squarrel run out in front of me yesterday when I was returning from a lovely ride. I managed not to lock the breaks and the critter got away clean.

I hit an armadillo on a rented scooter in Florida when I was 16. I didn't lay the scooter down, but it was definitely one of those "my life flashed in front of my eyes" incidents.

The impact killed the poor little guy, which was a made even more upsetting for me since armadillo's are one of my all-time favorite animals. The only thing that could be more devastating to me would be running down a 3 toed sloth. Luckily they spend 99% of their lives in trees, where they are generally safe from the wrath of me and my insidious scooter.

In NH we have squirrels that seem to make a game of seeing how close they can come to getting run over. Sometimes there will be a pair of squirrels on the side of the road just sitting there until you get close. Then one will dart out in front of you and try to run under the vehicle you are driving before darting back to the safety of the curb. I swear I have seen them high five each other after a few especially close calls.

I found a possum in my house once. Scared the crap outta me. It came up over the couch and hissed at me as if to say, "You feeling lucky, punk". I had to throw food out to get it to follow the trail outside...

I accidentally dispatched a squirrel to Tree Rat Heaven a few years ago on my Yamaha Vino 50 2T. I was expecting to eat pavement at the time, but I've hit pieces of gravel that had more impact on my trajectory than that squirrel had.
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Funny thing - last night I read this post just before signing off at work, hopped on my Elite, and rode home. Wouldn't you know it - a rabbit, dog, and squirrel all darted in my path at separate occasions. I even had a guy scare me when I went around a corner and he was behind a bush stepping out.

I've got to stop reading MB...

Funny today just missed a possum by a foot today on the way to work.

thatvwbusguy wrote:The only thing that could be more devastating to me would be running down a 3 toed sloth. Luckily they spend 99% of their lives in trees, where they are generally safe from the wrath of me and my insidious scooter.

They also move slowly enough that you'd see him coming and could easily maneuver around him.

It’s crazy reading some of these replies. I thought there would be a lot of pigeon stories.

Almost a decade ago, I *almost* ran over a good-sized snake with a Puch Maxi moped. Stopped just in the nick of time. The snake thanked me by coiling into the spokes of the front wheel. I just dismounted, put the bike on the stand and let the snake crawl all over the bike until it decided to go on its merry way. Good thing it was a road less traveled.

PeteH wrote:

h/t AlienMeatSack

you gacced a hog?

I had a close call with a chupacabra a few weeks ago. Very early in the morning, still dark out. I was WOT and the bastard darted out of the woods after me. It looked like a hairless wolf with spines, claws, and massive teeth. Crikey!!

BootScootin'FireFighter wrote:I had a close call with a chupacabra a few weeks ago. Very early in the morning, still dark out. I was WOT and the bastard darted out of the woods after me. It looked like a hairless wolf with spines, claws, and massive teeth. Crikey!!

they only go after goats.
you must smell like a goat. a fast goat.

VinylDoctor wrote:

BootScootin'FireFighter wrote:I had a close call with a chupacabra a few weeks ago. Very early in the morning, still dark out. I was WOT and the bastard darted out of the woods after me. It looked like a hairless wolf with spines, claws, and massive teeth. Crikey!!

they only go after goats.
you must smell like a goat. a fast goat.

Or look like one.

My worst "almost" was a large deer, complete with impressive antlers, several years ago. It was one of those occasions that called for underwear shopping but no harm done to either of us. Other than that there's been some close calls with stupid dogs. Or dogs with stupid owners, more likely.

Many years ago, my dad employed a young college student in the office who came to work at our country office on a Yamaha 400. He said he caught a blur out of the corner of his eye and ducked just quick enough to feel a scrape across his back. He saw a wild turkey when he got a chance to look. The claw scratches were plainly visible on his leather jacket.

On the MC last year I almost nailed (or got nailed based on the final outcome) by a turkey vulture. I didn't notice several vultures in a field on the side of the road. Right before reaching them, they decided to take flight and one came across the road missing me by a few feet.

Now these are very large birds, so I think it's safe to assume that had this collision occurred, I would not have rode/walked away unscathed.

Rob

Glad you escaped. When upset they have a disturbing way of losing their lunch. And you don't want to be around for that.

I've never actually hit an animal, but I've had a disastrous close call; I ended up on a scooter because a cat ran in front of me, I swerved into grass to avoid it, and something in the grass I couldn't see knocked the engine off all of the mounts in my poor VW. Learned my lesson there, hahaha!

As for possums, they are the spawn of satan. There's a fairly infamous story among my close friends, it goes like this: my roomie and two of our friends were driving home from a party one night, each in their own cars, going to the same house. A possum walks into the road; my roomie hits it, then it proceeds to be hit by the next two cars. The last car in the line is a newly purchased 2000 BMW sedan, and the possum takes out the right side light assembly... our friend is PISSED because it's like his third day owning the car.

The next morning the same friend who owned the BMW had to head back to the house the party was at because he left a wallet/phone/something there, and takes the same route. The same possum who bounced around on the road, was hit by three different cars and trashed his headlamp is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND... that thing not only survived, it got up and walked away.

Unnatural, I tell you.

LunaP wrote:I've never actually hit an animal, but I've had a disastrous close call; I ended up on a scooter because a cat ran in front of me, I swerved into grass to avoid it, and something in the grass I couldn't see knocked the engine off all of the mounts in my poor VW. Learned my lesson there, hahaha!

As for possums, they are the spawn of satan. There's a fairly infamous story among my close friends, it goes like this: my roomie and two of our friends were driving home from a party one night, each in their own cars, going to the same house. A possum walks into the road; my roomie hits it, then it proceeds to be hit by the next two cars. The last car in the line is a newly purchased 2000 BMW sedan, and the possum takes out the right side light assembly... our friend is PISSED because it's like his third day owning the car.

The next morning the same friend who owned the BMW had to head back to the house the party was at because he left a wallet/phone/something there, and takes the same route. The same possum who bounced around on the road, was hit by three different cars and trashed his headlamp is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND... that thing not only survived, it got up and walked away.

Unnatural, I tell you.

something prolly ate it.
put a nice fresh dead animal in the road,
and try to find it the next day.

Mmmm... nice fresh dead animals. Yummy

When I was working as an animal control officer, I was sent to one intersection to remove a dead Canada goose from the roadway. It was still fresh when I got there and I dragged it out of the roadway so traffic could get by. A guy in a pick up stopped before I had it loaded up and asked if he could have it. I let him take it.

We had another incident in the fall, late at night when a driver stopped for a raccoon crossing the road. The raccoon decided the car was a nice warm spot to spend the night and crawled up into his front wheel well. One of our police officer saw the car stopped in the middle of the road and went to find out what was going on. He called me over to get the raccoon out. After a long struggle, we finally were able to get the bite stick around the raccoon and pull him out of the wheel well. We took him over to the shoulder and let him go and the raccoon raced back to the wheel well again before the driver could leave! Once again we had to work to get him with the bite stick and get him away from the tire. This time we took him farther away from the road and waited until the driver left before we released him.

I have hit a opossum on my Buddy 150. It may have helped that it was already dead - thus stationary and presumably a little pre-flattened. Definitely induced a pucker factor as I was driving ~45mph in the dark morning, banked into a left curve, and lights from oncoming car kept me from seeing the opossum until the last second. I knew hitting twinkle-toes might throw me but attempting a swerve or brake was absolutely out of the question.

In my scooting experience, hitting a squirrel is no problem. Just run over the little critter and feel a tinge of sorrow for him. If hungry, go back and get your stew meat.

Trying to swerve or brake radically, especially in a curve, can only cause you more problems. I know this from experience as well and am thankful to still be riding injury-free.

Nailed a cat while riding a CBR400RR at about 35 MPH. Just a quick little bump and that was all, no drama. Granted, that's a 400 lb. bike on 17" wheels so the same scenario might play out differently for a scooter.

We used to have possums in our neighborhood, but since the coyotes moved in, I haven't seen one in several years. Strange, haven't seen stray cats or dogs either. Or small children...

When I raced bicycles we all said"if you can eat it in one meal, run over it". Just hope you don't have too big of an appetite

Squirrels, chipmunks, even cats are all "squishables". The best tactic is to continuing in a straight line.


Possums? Hmm, kinda iffy on 10" wheels. How often do you practice emergency swerving? Go to a parking lot and practice. If you take a friend, have them stand in the lot, you ride toward them, they wait, quickly point left or right, and you swerve as fast as possible in that direction after seeing the signal.


I hated possums till I found out they can eat 4000 ticks a week; Lyme disease is no joke.

JettaKnight wrote:How often do you practice emergency swerving? Go to a parking lot and practice. If you take a friend, have them stand in the lot, you ride toward them, they wait, quickly point left or right, and you swerve as fast as possible in that direction after seeing the signal.

How many friends have you lost practicing this drill?

Dooglas wrote:

JettaKnight wrote:How often do you practice emergency swerving? Go to a parking lot and practice. If you take a friend, have them stand in the lot, you ride toward them, they wait, quickly point left or right, and you swerve as fast as possible in that direction after seeing the signal.

How many friends have you lost practicing this drill?

Haven't you take the MSF course?


Obviously, the friend should point long before you're within striking distance.

One ride quite a few years back I was riding my motorcycle. A bird flew across my path and I took it square in the chest at about 65 mph. It knocked the wind out of me. I was almost home an hour later when a cat ran out into the road and I went right over it. I got home and put the bike away for two weeks figuring I had pushed my luck far enough. On two other occasions I have run into a bee that decided to stay in my helmet and get revenge on me. Both times I had a passenger on the back. I haven't hit anything with the scoooter yet but I only have about 400 miles on one so far.

Wertles wrote:One ride quite a few years back I was riding my motorcycle. A bird flew across my path and I took it square in the chest at about 65 mph. It knocked the wind out of me. I was almost home an hour later when a cat ran out into the road and I went right over it. I got home and put the bike away for two weeks figuring I had pushed my luck far enough. On two other occasions I have run into a bee that decided to stay in my helmet and get revenge on me. Both times I had a passenger on the back. I haven't hit anything with the scoooter yet but I only have about 400 miles on one so far.

All that happened in under 400 miles?!

JettaKnight wrote:

Wertles wrote:One ride quite a few years back I was riding my motorcycle. A bird flew across my path and I took it square in the chest at about 65 mph. It knocked the wind out of me. I was almost home an hour later when a cat ran out into the road and I went right over it. I got home and put the bike away for two weeks figuring I had pushed my luck far enough. On two other occasions I have run into a bee that decided to stay in my helmet and get revenge on me. Both times I had a passenger on the back. I haven't hit anything with the scoooter yet but I only have about 400 miles on one so far.

All that happened in under 400 miles?!

No. This happened on my motorcycle. I have probably 125,000 miles on a few different bikes. I recently got a scooter to put on the RV so I can get around and have only put about 400 miles on it so far.

I took bird to the left shoulder at 65 mph on my Sportster and that little robin sized bird almost knocked me off the bike! In the mirror all I saw was a cloud of feathers! Scared the crap outta me though.

I remember years ago while riding my sportbike through some winding mountain roads when a hornet got caught between my inner thigh and the gas tank. Well, that little bugger started stinging me right on the tender part of my inner thigh while I was healed over doing about 65 MPH. If you know anything about hornets, they will sting you multiple times in succession and laugh in your face. Wasn't a damn thing I could do about it for what seemed like an eternity since I was leaned over going fast on a long sweeping turn. Talk about pain. I had welts all over my thigh; wearing pants and walking around or even taking a shower was not very fun.

Then there was another time I was riding on the Freeway in hot weather with my jacket part way unzipped when a bumble bee hit me in the chest and fell into my jacket and stung me right in the belly button.

My bug stories aren't finished yet.

Again on my sportbike, wearing a full face helmet with the visor flipped open, on the Freeway cruising at around 90 (it was on a wide open stretch of road) when some kind of big, black bug (going too fast to see what it actually was) hit the edge of my glasses and splattered all over the inside of my helmet. There was bug guts all over my glasses, my face, and the inside of the helmet. Yuk!

Jeez, what's with these stupid kamikaze insects!