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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.


Don't be the darkness.

America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.


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Had one take off a radio antenna... Closest I've come. Bummer about your windshield crack.


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That's scary stuff. I've had more near misses than I want to lay claim to. Mostly triple digits on a bike having to do some weird contortion to miss it. I've lost two friends to birds on the highway and bikes. One a buzzard and one a hawk.


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Big owl once in PA.


If you are not actively engaging EVERY enemy you encounter... you are allowing another to fight for you... and that is cowardice... plain and simple.



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A buddy of mine hit a turkey buzzard in Far West Texas with his Toyota pickup while driving out to Big Bend.

Came right through the windshield, and then projectile vomited all over the cab before dying.

Only thing I’ve hit like that was a chicken, about like hitting a basketball, dented the grill of the university pickup I was driving.


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Red tail Hawk tried to come through my godfathers windshield on the way out to an evening deer hunt. 55-60 mph the hawk swooped headfirst from some distance. Happens quick.

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Originally Posted by DMc
Had one take off a radio antenna... Closest I've come. Bummer about your windshield crack.



Yeah, well...cracked windshields happen a lot here and I'm sure you know that living in the same area. Windshields just don't survive long in this neck of the woods owing to all the gravel being trucked around. I was running this one "a while longer" before replacing it. I'm rethinking the whole notion of getting more miles out of a cracked one before getting a new one installed. Coulda been a very bad scene.


Don't be the darkness.

America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.


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Originally Posted by CashisKing
Big owl once in PA.




great horned owl hit one of my antennas, flew into van behind me and died , stopped picked it up , cops were driving by, up here we need permits to keep raptors, told them what i had and would get permit tomorrow.
I was part of first responders knew all the cops, got a permit next day , still have the owl on my wall.

norm


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No.

I remember reading and seeing pictures in a Car Magazine 25ish years ago, some kind of race in the south-west.
Guy was driving a Mitsubishi VR-4 all-wheel drive car, big twin turbo etc. etc. going down a road that was as much gravel as it was pavement. He said it was so bumpy he was holding the gas pedal to the floorboard with both feet. Speed was over 170mph, he could see some buzzards in the mirage and thought they'd get out of the way. Nope,, blew right through one or two got hit. It destroyed the lower air dam, grill, radiator, serpentine belt, pulleys, etc. putting him out of the race.
He said it was a stinky clean up.

RiverRider, sounds like you need one of the windshield crack/chip guys help.


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I ran over a chicken, it was like going over a bowling ball

wtf

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Swing by again and let us know if they eat their own. Don't know if they do the cannibal thing or not. I suspect they appear quite large at close range.

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Worked at Kennecott Barney’s Canyon Gold mine years ago. My boss, who was from back East, fancied himself as Mario Andretti in a Ford Escort and with the downhill run, would drive like a bat out of hell going out of there. Coming around a bend one morning after night shift he hit an elk that not only busted the windshield, it turned that Escort into a convertible and bled out in the back seat. My boss dove for the floorboard at the last second or I’m sure he would have been killed.


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Originally Posted by slumlord
I ran over a chicken, it was like going over a bowling ball

wtf



Most likely badly overcooked.


Don't be the darkness.

America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.


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Buzzard Hell... How bout a Whooping Crane... Four or five of em took off from the field on my left, The last one caught me high on the left doors... His legs got in my open left rear window... Damaged trim and Whoopie Schit all over the car... Got off lucky... That thing was Huge...

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I once hit a hawk going 80 MPH on the Jersey Turnpike. Hit the top of the windshield, bounced off and keep flying. About an hour earlier I center punched a mourning dove in the windshield killing it, feathers all over, first time for both.

About a month earlier while going elk hunting in Colorado, I was on Rt. 80 going 85 mph when a V shaped piece of rebar flew up in the air after getting run over by the driver in front of me. It stuck on the hood of my Ford F-150 like javelin. If it hit a little higher, I don't know if my buddy would be here today. Can't imagine what would have happened if it hit lower and the air bags went off.

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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Came right through the windshield, and then projectile vomited all over the cab before dying.
Same thing happened to a classmates Dad when I was in high school. He said it took weeks for the feathers and the stench to leave that van after the windshield was replaced.
I hit one a couple years ago with my old truck.
Luckily he cleared the windshield, bounced off the toppa the cab and landed on the berm stone dead.
It laid there for weeks, never saw other buzzards bother the corpse. (if that answers your question)
Also hit a Great Horned Owl in West Virginia. I was in a semi truck and straddled him. If he stayed put he made it, but I never got back to see.
Also several guinie fowl at different times, fellow out the road has some free range. They’re too damn stupid to move outta the way.
7mm


"Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is." � Wesley Pruden


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Bounced one off of my shoulder while riding my Suzuki DR650 at about 40 MPH. Glancing blow. The smell of ammonia was overpowering.

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Originally Posted by PaulBarnard
Bounced one off of my shoulder while riding my Suzuki DR650 at about 40 MPH. Glancing blow. The smell of ammonia was overpowering.

Try PTFE Teflon...

The Coefficient of Friction is fare superior to spandex.


If you are not actively engaging EVERY enemy you encounter... you are allowing another to fight for you... and that is cowardice... plain and simple.



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5:00am early morning EMS run. Riding shotgun on a narrow back road. Lights and siren must have spooked a roosting turkey out of a tree. Turkey hit passenger side windshield right in front of me. Football size ident in the windshield. Would have had a face full of turkey if not for the safety laminate.

Definitely get your attention.



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Never hit a buzzard but I did hit a turkey once. Driving to work one day I started to come over a knoll when a flock of turkeys took off to my right. One of them came off the bank and right into the driver's side post on my truck. Launched it straight up into the air. I looked in my mirror just in time to see it hit the road right in front of a little 2-seater convertible that went right over it. When I got to work I looked for possible damage and only found turkey puke all over the driver's side of my truck.


Wag more, bark less.

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The men who wrote the Second Amendment didn't just finish a hunting trip, they just finished liberating a nation.
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