dduelin
Site Supporter
My habit when following traffic ahead is to ride behind a rear corner of the car ahead so I can see around that car and get a view of the road ahead plus drivers will usually move in their lane to straddle or avoid road debris so I'll shift lane position from one side to the other as conditions require and as cars ahead telegraph what may lie unseen in the roadway ahead. I try to always leave 2 seconds or more following distance both for stopping distances and to keep adequate sight lines open.
So last Sunday morning I was [not following the above] following too closely a string of 3 or 4 cars ahead and was in the act of changing from the left side of the lane to the right side so I could see around the car and into the right hand bend we were starting into. We were doing about 50 mph. About when I was directly behind the car ahead and only a second or so behind it an animal carcass appeared out from the bumper of the car directly in my path. It was a large fox or a medium size dog and sliding on the pavement about 50 mph. I don't know if it fell out from under the car or was just struck but it was sliding on it's side just barely slower than we were going. The animal began to slow down and as it rotated a turn or two I moved quicker to the right to avoid it sliding straight into my front tire. I wasn't sure if it would take me down because it was still sliding about as fast as I was going but I didn't want to find out. The road was banked a little to the right due to the right hand bend and the animal started sliding off to the right and closed up on me. I kept moving to the right but ran out of pavement and there was a drop off I didn't want to fall off of. Up to then I had not let off the throttle and maintained 50 mph but I had to roll on and speed up as I judged the carcass would cross in front of me as it slid off the roadway and I would be trying to maintain control right on the edge of the pavement. By speeding up I barely made it past the animal with the front tire and part of the carcass was run over by my rear wheel as it slid under me. It gave me a bit of a fright as I replayed it in my mind.
I post this as a cautionary tale. The animal carcass could have been a car battery or rusty muffler I surely would have hit in the center of the road because I did not have time and room to avoid it. As it was I very nearly ran off the pavement and still ran over part of the animal. If I had been maintaining 2 or more seconds following distance it would not have been a near miss.
So last Sunday morning I was [not following the above] following too closely a string of 3 or 4 cars ahead and was in the act of changing from the left side of the lane to the right side so I could see around the car and into the right hand bend we were starting into. We were doing about 50 mph. About when I was directly behind the car ahead and only a second or so behind it an animal carcass appeared out from the bumper of the car directly in my path. It was a large fox or a medium size dog and sliding on the pavement about 50 mph. I don't know if it fell out from under the car or was just struck but it was sliding on it's side just barely slower than we were going. The animal began to slow down and as it rotated a turn or two I moved quicker to the right to avoid it sliding straight into my front tire. I wasn't sure if it would take me down because it was still sliding about as fast as I was going but I didn't want to find out. The road was banked a little to the right due to the right hand bend and the animal started sliding off to the right and closed up on me. I kept moving to the right but ran out of pavement and there was a drop off I didn't want to fall off of. Up to then I had not let off the throttle and maintained 50 mph but I had to roll on and speed up as I judged the carcass would cross in front of me as it slid off the roadway and I would be trying to maintain control right on the edge of the pavement. By speeding up I barely made it past the animal with the front tire and part of the carcass was run over by my rear wheel as it slid under me. It gave me a bit of a fright as I replayed it in my mind.
I post this as a cautionary tale. The animal carcass could have been a car battery or rusty muffler I surely would have hit in the center of the road because I did not have time and room to avoid it. As it was I very nearly ran off the pavement and still ran over part of the animal. If I had been maintaining 2 or more seconds following distance it would not have been a near miss.