Not content with letting the deer, the enforcers for the Animal Uprising™, hog all the glory (you should excuse the expression), the turtles have decided to get into the action. That's right suicide turtles are causing automobile accidents.
UPPER TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Why did the turtle cross the road? We'll never know, but it sure caused one heck of an accident. A woman who swerved to avoid hitting the reptile as it crawled across the northbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway Tuesday afternoon lost control of her car, crashed through a guardrail and tumbled down an embankment before the car flipped over onto its roof.
Saranne Goldinger, 65, of Cape May, was wearing a seat belt and was not critically injured, State Police said. Her car, however, was heavily damaged.
The turtle fared even worse. A vehicle that had been driving behind Goldinger flattened the critter.
Amazing reflexes. That turtle must have lunged out from the side of the road like a veritable bolt of lightning! The Animal Uprising™ has racing turtles now! Personally, we here at the Crabitat have a general rule. If the animal is bigger than the car, try to avoid it if you can do so without losing control and hurtling down an embankment (or worse, into oncoming traffic where you'll kill more than just yourself). If it's smaller than the car, well, roadkill happens.
We have had an epidemic of suicide turtle attacks here in Texas, caused primarily by the excessive rain which encourages turtles to breed. Nothing like a herd of amorous male turtles chasing one female to block a highway.
Sigh. I know you are right about the whole “roadkill happens” thing, but I am such an animal lover that my nature is to avoid the animals, almost at any cost.
Fortunately, here in the desert southwest, the faster roads usually only get critters that slither, and I don’t mind making them roadkill so much…
(When I was in high school, I roadkilled a cat. It was on a rural road, out in the sticks. I verified it was dead – it didn’t have tags, but it had a collar, and was obviously well-fed. I was heart-broken, imagining some little girl looking for her kitty, and calling for it. It was way far out from any houses, so I didn’t think it made sense to go around to every house in a mile radius…)