1/4 mile down the road from me this morning, in the dark, a horse was in the road and got hit by a minivan doing 60. The horse is dead, both people in the car badly injured. It opened the roof like a sardine can.
This is what happens if you tag a moose or elk. Don't take a chance with one. You will lose.

Man.....

Very reminiscent of Moose-vehicle collisions in New England

I know of two people paralyzed by crashes like that.

This is exactly why I drive below the speed limit when I leave the house before sunrise and I drive with the expectation that I'll encounter livestock/wildlife and I have. The scariest was a very foggy morning on a two-lane blacktop and I ran up on a large black angus in the middle of my lane, fortunately I was only going about 30-mph and stopped in time to avoid it.

Idaho is an open range state and livestock have the right of way. However, open range doesn't apply in fenced areas and this happened in a fenced area. If the driver sues the horse's owner, he has a good chance of winning. If it was outside a fenced area, the horse's owner would collect the value of the horse.
Moose have the right of way no matter where they are.

It's amazing how something so big can seem to be invisible until it's often too late. I've come up on moose in the dark many times and thankfully have never tangled with one.

In the brush, moose can be darn hard to see in broad daylight, too.

Hit a moose with my truck and it didn't do any damage. I've got an one off fabricated super heavy cattle guard type bumper with an winch on front and that moose was ejected a good 100 ft down I-90. My bumper and guard is made from 1/2" plate steel and it's saved my old truck many times from critters and once from an new SUV it peeled open like an pop can.

Yes, happens a lot up here.

Either way, big animals and cars don't mix well.

About 20 years ago my wife and I were traveling at night in my Toyota FJ40 Landcruiser . Blinded by oncoming truck lights , we centerpunched a cow moose at about 50MPH. Made roadkill of the moose and the Tojo instantly but we got off without a scratch, don't know how, it was like hitting a brick wall. If we had been driving a car or some little plastic jeep we would have been killed for sure, the old FJ-40's were built like a tank.

about 15 years ago a gal over at Priest River punched a moose. all 4 legs ended up inside the car. poor gal almost got kicked to death. something like 400 stitches.

Good lord!

A man at work once ran over a donkey with his company truck It did some damage, but nothing like the original post int his thread.

I've investigated a couple of moose/vehicle fatalities. They are bad.

My prayers go out for the victims and the first responders.

Ed

I own my farm partly because the previous owner drove under a horse in a Ford Ranger truck on his way to work. Some portion of the horse ended up in the cockpit, thrashing, until an LEO came and put down the horse so first responders could extricate the driver. He ended up with a permanent back injury that was not conducive to working cattle or bouncing around on a tractor.

Our neighbor used to have a holstein bull that was an escape artist. Wife and I were on our way to town one night and found a mini van in pieces on the road. The woman driving, and her young daughters were very fortunate to only have some bruises.

I hear they shoot the livestock owners in Idaho...

Yes. An exercise I'd only want to try with my cow-catcher bumper. With all the fiberglass and composites, there's not much in the way of stout with todays rigs.

That should buff out

We got 50,000 wild ones running around our state. I see 20-40 wild horses every day where I live. A scourge, public nuisance, safety hazard and ecological disaster. Known of 2 people in last year to die by horse/car collision. phugging BLM.

I bet the poor horse would love to tell his side of the story.

The BLM would LOVE to be rid of them. Blame congress for this fiasco.

Yeah I have had to lock up the binders coming up on horses in the dark early morning twice, and that is expecting to see them any second. Then suddenly, they are there!

Driving from Steamboat Springs to Craig early one morning during elk season I had a huge bull elk and 15 or so cows cross the road right in front of me. It was quite the rodeo avoiding hiting one of them. I did not have to change underwear, but it was close LOL.

tom

OK. Phugging Government. Anyone not making decisions based on science. And, for my knowledge, what was the legislation congress enacted to stop the BLM from doing their job?

A friend drove his VW bug under a black bear and was killed... a lot of years ago...

I used that in the cop question thread.

Oh, the irony!

Some gal down in Kasilof started a "give moose a brake" campaign - i.e. slow down, especially at night. I was working swing shift the first night I heard it on the radio and thought it an excellent idea, since I was usually on the road going 25 miles home about 2 a.m., prime moose time. So I did 45 instead of 55-60 on the way home.

100 yards from the turnoff the main highway (2 miles from the house), a cow moose came out of the deep ditch on the right, crossed the road, did not like the even deeper ditch over there, came back into the middle of my lane and turned straight away. Even tho I was on the binders, she still wasn't fast enough, and we were both out of maneuvering room and time. Our combined speed was probably no more than 25 or so, but it broke her back leg or hip and caved in the whole front end of the 150.

With a growing family, I needed more vehicle anyway. Fortunately a trooper came over the hill not 2 minutes later, dispatched the moose, and gave me a ride home. I have missed others by mere inches to 2 or 3 feet.

A few years later, just down the road, someone's horse was exploded - literally- all over the road by a loaded 18 wheeler, which wound up off the left side of the road, wedged nicely between two spruce - not wedged tightly enough to tree damage the cab, just tightly enough the driver had to go out the window.

This particular sack of bones appears to be a rescue horse. This happened right in front of the driveway of a place that takes them in.

If you were going our normal speed you would have been home when the moose came on to the road.

Well, that one anyway!

A few weeks ago, I was cruising up the Parks Highway in the gloaming of moose:30 and on high alert. Fortunately, the critter who bolted out of the uncropped, budget victim of a state in crisis, road ditch wasn't a long-legged moose, but a more agile brown bear. The right headlight pasted it's beam squarely on him before he turned to run alongside as we whizzed past at 65 mph. I didn't have time to get on the brakes and swerving seemed ill-advised at that speed. Son who was 'sleeping' in the right seat evidently saw it all through closed eye lids judging from the expletives which spewed hence.

I can speak in tongues... too

Yeah Ringman, I thought of that!

I believe you're thinking of the Wild Horse and Burro protection act of IIRC 1972. It was shoved down our throat by a bunch of little old ladies in tennis shoes who along with Wild horse Annie who got hundreds if not thousands of kids to write their reps in the House and Senate. The bill got past considering the mustangs and mules to be endangered and historical species. I lived in Winnemucca at the time and can remember how pizzed off people were, me included.
Paul B.

It takes a good bumper to get rid of a moose when hit.

This happened to me years ago when a very expensive and very black Shriner's horse got loose on our blacktop road about midnight. I also stopped in time, then went and woke up the caretaker.

I hit a horse once but was driving a Ford Falcon Wagon and the damage wasn't that bad, so I was lucky.

+1, I was going hunting about 5:30 AM on a very dark morning and met a black angus steer in the middle of the road,
was fortunate and got stopped in time. Not many things are better camouflaged than a black animal on a dark night.

Route to the office passes through some wintering pastures. On foggy AM a rig took out an Angus, and the driver made a call to the owner telling him some animals were out. His crew came rushing to the scene to get things rounded up and in their haste took out two more cows.

One of my coworkers is a bit famous for hard driving. One evening he ended up high centered after taking out a Hereford bull. He should have known better, as it was a well known open range area with pasture to the west and water east of the highway.

When I still worked full time on the Medic Response truck in my area, I had a call for 2 folks who had hit a very large domestic hog in a 90's Ford Explorer. This was one of those "He just wonders around our yard and farm" type hogs. I'm no expert, but several hundred pounds. Had to wait for the fire department and we had to cut both occupants out of the vehicle. Both got flown to the trauma center in Pittsburgh. Hog was standing on the yard watching us the whole time. Had marks on his side from the bumper/grill. Lived several more years just roaming around that yard.

Hitting a hog is like hitting a log. They're very dense and solid.

With a low center of gravity. Unlike a moose or a horse

Jerry

Yeah, a horse or moose will go over the top of the car. A car will likely go over the top of a hog and get flipped.

Idaho's "Open Range" law is something that is more often than not, misunderstood.

It is not about fenced areas versus non fenced areas, it is about herd districts.

Only parts of the state are open range, and where this collision occurred was in a herd district, and therefore the animal was required to be kept off the road by it's owner.


Here is a quick rundown:


What is Open Range?

This is a legal description of land in Idaho that is defined by Idaho code as "All unenclosed lands outside of cities, villages, and herd districts, upon which cattle, by custom, license, lease, or permit, are grazed or permitted to roam." Basically, any land in the state that is not designated as a herd district and is not fenced is considered open range and thus, livestock can legally be on that land. Open range also applies to all public land whether managed by the Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, Idaho Dept. of Lands, or other federal entities who have livestock grazing permits.



Here is the Herd District map for Twin Falls County:

http://idrange.org/ranchers/Open%20Range/open-range

I see that Idaho's open range law is up for another challenge. You might remember the Jack Yantis case last year. A couple hit a bull on a rural Idaho highway. Before it was over, the bull's owner, Jack Yantis, was shot and killed by sheriff's deputies. The couple injured in the wreck are starting a campaign to change the laws. It's highly unlikely to go anywhere. The legislature is largely controlled by the agricultural people and they're not about to change any laws that protect them.