Confidence to drive slowly when appropriate.

[MGF]

Gareth's lateral hazard comment reminded me that advanced driving generally appears to use limited examples of what a lateral hazard might be. Zebedee's point on hedgerows is encouraging for going beyond the obvious. I am not keen on being close to hedgerows at high speeds simply because of my lack of confidence that lateral hazards are absent simply because I cannot see any junctions.

[trashbat]

Animal encounters aren't much mentioned in AD, at least not in my experience. But I expect anyone who's ever lived where deer are common, for example, will drive slower in forests or where there's thick undergrowth by the road.

I have to ask: how do you balance a low probability, completely unpredictable, unwarned risk against a lack of progress every single journey?

Some of my commutes have included the type of environment where deer might jump out, and indeed several of my colleagues lost cars to it, but I only ever saw one in several years. Perhaps foolishly, I can't say suddenly emerging wildlife has an enormous bearing on my risk management.

[Ancient]

Animal encounters aren't much mentioned in AD, at least not in my experience. But I expect anyone who's ever lived where deer are common, for example, will drive slower in forests or where there's thick undergrowth by the road.

I have to ask: how do you balance a low probability, completely unpredictable, unwarned risk against a lack of progress every single journey?

Some of my commutes have included the type of environment where deer might jump out, and indeed several of my colleagues lost cars to it, but I only ever saw one in several years. Perhaps foolishly, I can't say suddenly emerging wildlife has an enormous bearing on my risk management.

I used to agree, until a deer did jump out in front of me on a road I used frequently. fortunately it ran alongside, giving me time to brake and allow it to cross in front. Much of the risk balance is about considering time of day: Early morning/ late evening seem particular times when deer cross from one feeding pach to another IME, but this may be closely related to another factor, which is when is the road you are travelling busy vs quiet (they seem generally to prefer the quiet times).

Of course animals are not the only thing that may emerge from hedgegrows,children still like to play hide and seek. Most parents I know will not let their children outside because the parents admit to driving too fast and carelessly themselves; the parents who allow their children the freedom that we had are villified, but their kids are out there...

[Horse]

Animal encounters aren't much mentioned in AD, at least not in my experience. But I expect anyone who's ever lived where deer are common, for example, will drive slower in forests or where there's thick undergrowth by the road.

I have to ask: how do you balance a low probability, completely unpredictable, unwarned risk against a lack of progress every single journey?

Some of my commutes have included the type of environment where deer might jump out, and indeed several of my colleagues lost cars to it, but I only ever saw one in several years. Perhaps foolishly, I can't say suddenly emerging wildlife has an enormous bearing on my risk management.

It's a variation on the terrorist v security argument: you have to get it 'right' every time, but it takes just one deer . . .

But can you truly predictsuch events? Perhaps not, although . . . Deer are mainly out dawn and dusk, near woodland etc. They're sheep on stilts, so herd creatures - where there's one then there's usually another (like kids!) also creatures of habit, so will tend to cross roads at the same locations.

Perhaps the 'kids' comparison could go further: you can predict likely places for them, so would you argue that just because your friends have hit kids but you haven't . . . etc.?

[JamesAllport]

I'd always been fairly unconcerned about animal-strike until a few years ago, driving someone else's car down Glencoe in the dark (the joys of HPC navigation!) I slowed because of some bright patches in the distance that I couldn't identify. It turned out to be a large stag, so one of my better planning choices.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I've had two salutory lessons in deer assessment with HPC co-drivers. The first was some time ago and involved a doe who bounced across in front, followed shortly after by a younger animal. My co-driver reminded me that "where there's one, there may be two". The deer were far enough in front not to cause a problem.

The second came when I was driving a large and very fast BMW belonging to a fellow member who also posts on here. We were making good progress down a straight road when a huge stag came out of the foliage to the left and bounded across the road. I braked fairly sharply, and remembered there may be a second animal. Sure enough a second enormous male followed. You can guess what happened next. Pleased with myself for predicting the two deer, I eased off the brakes just as the third, even bigger stag appeared to our left and followed his mates. I had to break a rule and go for some secondary braking Next time I'm going to just stop, and wait very carefully until I'm sure there are no more deer (allowing for anybody following closely behind, of course).

[Zebedee]

Gratuitous photo of a car hit by a pheasant:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=1386336&r=28048386&hm=90787&mid=90787#28048386

[Kimosabe]

One reason comes to mind immediately. This is Spring time. When is it not appropriate?

An (fully laden) adult male badger can weigh between 10kg and 15kg at this time of year; also around an average weight for a 4 to 6 year old child. How sure can you be that 15kg of badger isn't about to scarper out of cover to cross the road you're driving on at NSL, right in front of you? An adult male Fallow Deer can weigh 150kg and probably won't be alone. Nobody wins!

Roads are not only the territory of things with wheels. They bisect the natural habitats of animals and should be treated with the same respect as that which we all give to urban residential roads, upon which we assume 'a child could run out from between parked cars'. Do kids play in the streets where you live? Probably not but if I ask you if animals cross roads, no denial can exist. This is one example of when it is appropriate to drive more slowly. As Advanced Drivers, we have the perfect position to demonstrate our understanding and of such things which yer average bloke bombing down the road might not.

Non predatory animals often have their eyes on the sides of their heads and don't perceive changes distance ie an approaching car in the same way as animals with eyes on the front of their heads. Think of pidgeons, side on. They have to constantly move their heads with fast and jerky movements in order to perceive anything which moves towards them from the side. They sort of relate 'memory A' with 'memory B' and compare results in order to conclude differences. Many mammals don't need to do this because they can use both of their eyes to focus on an object but they need to be looking straight at it in order to perceive approach. Badgers have few natural predators but also have crap eyesight. Cars tend not to smell in any recognisable way when upwind and make an unrecogniseable noise to some wild animals. They stand no chance.

The evidence proves that when badgers, rabbits and deer are hit by cars, not only do they die an avoidable death (our responsibility) but very often, their families can also suffer to the point of death too. Sure, this level of awareness and compassion may not be of utmost importance to some people but I urge anyone to consider our fauna to be of equal importance to everything else we share habitat with.

For me, this is not a matter of driving with any lack of confidence but one of reasoned assessment and caution. In my estimation, it is always appropriate to drive more slowly if reasons exist to do so....the things we know we don't know. As a driver, I am not in pursuit of anyone or anything except pleasure and/or necessity, so driving as if I am a Police Advanced Driver who is not on a shout, would be a matter of having some fun and reaching speed limits are a matter of conjecture. Sometimes I feel 'The Book' should be left as a reference guide for those for whom it is intended. They're named on the front cover and undergo far more extensive non pursuit driver training than anyone with an IAM F1rst or RoSPA Gold. One of their main operational aims, is to make excellent and safe progress until a reason exists to not. I don't have any such operational aims as a driver and neither do most of you, so the progress imperative is of lesser concern to me than the safety imperative and that's not just about my own safety.

How can anyone be certain that a very hungry animal, such as a recently dormant, very hungry and breeding Badger, might need to cross the road along which the driver is strictly observing the speed limit to the nearest Planck, right in front of them and without warning? I asked this question to a former observer who treated it with derision and as an excuse by me to not drive faster. As they say, the driver is always in control and the application of mind-bendingly manipulative thinking during observed drives, does not override this! The gains made by adding a few mph in order to pattern match numbers on a sign to those on a speedo are minimal at best, if not nonexistent, though i'll admit doing so can sometimes be an interesting game to play.

Recently flooded fields yield little food (mainly insects in the case of Badgers) and this is changing gradually in favour of animals, so where woodland lies near to a field, it's reasonable to assume that animals would need access to them. I can name several roads which have fields on one side an woodland on the other. Right now, all of them have dead animals and bits of cars and lorries scattered along them. It's reasonable to assume that animals might choose to cross a road or run along it without warning, especially though not only, at night. So it's reasonable to slow things down such that in the event of a collision with an animal, less of a catastrophe would ensue than had the car been travelling at 60mph, just because the road conditions allowed it. Some IAM and RoSPA observers consider this cautious and reasonable attitude to be 'hesitation' or 'a lack of confidence' on the part of the driver. Oh well I'm evidently labouring this point!

I hope none of you have the misfortune of hitting anything but sometimes, that's the wake-up call needed to lift the illusory veil of 'confidence' and certainty. It certainly was for the driver who ran over my dog and i've met enough people whose lives have been worsened as a result of traffic related deaths to be sure that I see achieving a speed as a matter of guesswork and hope.

I hope you receive this in the way it is intended. Be safe.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I'm sure there are some very good forums for the discussion of badgers, somewhere

Just kidding, I like badgers too. Shame 80% of them need to be shot, apparently...

[true blue]

An (fully laden) adult male badger can weigh between 10kg and 15kg at this time of year; also around an average weight for a 4 to 6 year old child. How sure can you be that 15kg of badger isn't about to scarper out of cover to cross the road you're driving on at NSL, right in front of you? An adult male Fallow Deer can weigh 150kg and probably won't be alone.

Badgers will go under the wheels, and if the wheelarches of my car are to be believed so do pheasants (at least some of the time). Pigeons try too late to fly and crack bits of bumper/number plate.

Deer on the other hand are tall enough to go over the bonnet and onto the windscreen, and therefore present a much more significant hazard. Presumably this is why I sometimes see signs warning of deer, but have yet to see a badger sign. I don't like to say 'horses for courses' (especially as Newmarket is just up the road from here), but wildlife generally fares much, much worse than cars.

Quite why I've seen this (http://mwilsonherps.files.wordpress.com ... -sign1.jpg) in the past though eludes me - too many squashed critters on the road leading to a skid risk?

Just for clarification I'm not an octane-fuelled nutcase on a mission to run down as many squirrels as I possibly can - I break/move as best as I can to avoid incidents. On the other hand, given the choice between swerving for a head-on collision, braking hard for a rear-end impact or cleaning feathers off the wheel arch I'm sure I made the right choice last year.

[Zebedee]

Pheasants can fly too: see the earlier link I posted for photos of a car windscreen hit by a pheasant. Also, when I hit a pheasant a few years ago, it did over £600 damage to my car.

I dread to think what it would be like to hit a pheasant on my 'bike. A couple of weeks ago, I only just managed to avoid a flying pheasant whilst biking, which could have been calamitous. Wildlife incidents are nature's version of the SMIDSY.

I know two people who've hit a deer. One, a RoSPA diploma holder, had his car written off. The other, a biker, was launched from his bike and sent sliding some way down the road. Saved by his leathers but knocked unconscious, he was very lucky that other traffic didn't run over him as he lay unconscious in the middle of the road. Out of these two deer incidents, the car driver was more seriously injured than the biker.

Wildlife incidents are the rural equivalent of the SMIDSY. So far this year, I've done two hard stops for deer, plus four hard stops for pheasants. Last year, a duck could have had me off my bike. It stepped out of undergrowth right in front of my front wheel! Nature is good at camauflague

Mind you, once safely stopped, it's wonderful to see deer close up. They're beautiful creatures.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

Presumably this is why I sometimes see signs warning of deer, but have yet to see a badger sign. I don't like to say 'horses for courses' (especially as Newmarket is just up the road from here), but wildlife generally fares much, much worse than cars.

Quite why I've seen this (http://mwilsonherps.files.wordpress.com ... -sign1.jpg) in the past though eludes me - too many squashed critters on the road leading to a skid risk?

Just for clarification I'm not an octane-fuelled nutcase on a mission to run down as many squirrels as I possibly can - I break/move as best as I can to avoid incidents. On the other hand, given the choice between swerving for a head-on collision, braking hard for a rear-end impact or cleaning feathers off the wheel arch I'm sure I made the right choice last year.

The sign with the deer on it means "wild animals" which as Big Eric will inform you, covers anything from a migrating locust to escaped zoo leopards via red squirrels. Everyone just assumes it only means deer, and I assume it has a deer on it because that's the most common (dangerous to cars) wild animal. See Warning signs (PDF). Toads are a sort of special case because they migrate from their hibernation sites to water to mate in the early spring, leading to much higher numbers crossing roads (in some cases they have specially built culverts under the road on their migration routes).

I have had a foglight taken out by a pheasant. Any object that hits your car at 60mph or more becomes a missile and can damage lights and fittings. A badger is quite capable of taking your bumper off if you hit it at the wrong angle.

[Big Err]

Toads are a sort of special case because they migrate from their hibernation sites to water to mate in the early spring, leading to much higher numbers crossing roads (in some cases they have specially built culverts under the road on their migration routes).

We use the slippery road sign for toads

[trashbat]

I know of a motorcyclist that was killed when he hit a pheasant (into his helmet) - may have been that or the subsequent crash that did for him.

Most of the New Forest is 40mph because of the high chance of animals in the road, and there you do see plenty - wild(ish) ponoes, donkeys, cows mostly. The trouble is that when you live in the countryside where you might expect deer, but for the most part *don't* see any animals, it's a bit like seeing a sign that says "danger - asteroids".

For the most part I think my assessment of risk comes out as" carry on" - I don't want to seem wilfully ignorant but I think I'd also take deserved criticism were I to drive at 40 everywhere - and for what benefit if a deer jumps into my side?

[Carbon Based]

The trouble is that when you live in the countryside where you might expect deer, but for the most part *don't* see any animals

Ashdown Forest has the same blanket 40mph limit. It also has signs stating, IIRC, an average of one animal-vehicle collision per day in the area. No mention of near misses.

How does that compare with animal related incidents on a similar sized area of rural but non forest roads?

What happens when you combine that with the risk all roads present?