This afternoon while returning home from northern New Mexico, I passed through the small town of Dickens, Texas. Just before entering the town I had passed a slower vehicle. Approaching a slight rise at about 75 mph, we could see turkey vultures scattering. As we topped the rise I could see roadkill approximately where my right front wheel would normally pass and one reluctant buzzard to the left of it. I chose to steer to the left of the roadkill (one of those reflex decisions) and figured the buzzard would make his escape. The buzzard was too slow and rose just high enough to clear the grille of my F150 (thank you Lord!) and smacked the windshield right in front of my wife. THUMP! This all took place in about a tenth of a second as I recall it, maybe two tenths. I don't know how it looked to the guy I had passed a few moments before, but I imagine he saw a very dead buzzard launch twenty or thirty feet into the air.
A moment later I realized that if I'd passed over the roadkill centered, the buzzard may well have smacked the windshield right in front of my own face. As it was, there was already a crack about ten inches long and that damned buzzard might have come through the windshield and ended up wrapped around my mug. The impact on the passenger side of the windshield added another eight or ten inches to the existing crack on the driver side as it turns out.
I think I may have been very lucky today, all things considered. I never thought I'd actually cream a buzzard, though.
