Moose vs. Car....everybody loses!

In my contacts with moose on the road, I have noticed that they don't even try to get out of the way like whitetails do. They are especially hard to see at night, and that's when they roam around the most. If you have never seen a moose up close, you might not realize that they are really huge animals. This was a small one. I didn't take these pictures and I don't know the fate of the occupants, but the fate of the moose is obvious. The pictures should spark some conversation about preparedness when traveling in remote areas.

Wow, on the pix.

I've killed more deer with my car than with my firearms.

Check out the effectiveness of the reflective stripes on the officers' clothing. I gotta get me a vest with some of that stuff on it for my deep canyon hiking outfit.

Ouch!

One of the HUGE (no pun, but groan) problems with moose are the leg height vs say a deer - you hit a deer, they tend to stay in the grill, sometimes go under, and if they do go over the hood, the angle causes them to hit the hood, and then slide up, so they almost never go through the windshield

Moose, with their long legs, almost always go OVER, and are high enough that they almost always hit the windshield - guess what happens then?

In the rural highways of my AO, there are moose everywhere and not a year goes by that people are seriously injured and killed by them hitting a moose at speed. These moose can weigh 1000 lbs or more and reach 6 - 7 feet in height as measured to the large noticeable hump on their back.

I fortunately have only had one small encounter some years ago with a moose where I clipped it with the front bumper on my full size Jimmy. Luckily for me, my truck and the moose, there was no real damage as by time of the collision Ithe truck had slowed down considerably. We were worried that although moose seemed to be okay, that it could be injured. I called the local CO who appeared about 1/2 hour later and together we walked and searched for the moose down the ravine and semi open plateau area on the side of the highway where we had seen it run off into. After an almost hour long search with the approaching darkness and with no sign of or blood trail fom the moose, we came to the conclusion that the moose was probably ok and would live on.

Most of these collisions around here could be avoided if people obeyed the bountiful signs that warn them of moose areas next to the highway corridors and to keep their speeds down in which the typical posted night driving speed advisory is 70 km (40 mph) or lower. This is also more relevant in winter when road conditions can become treacherous and moose like to travel along the roads as it easier for them to walk along a regularily plowed road then it is to flounder through the typical deep snow off the highway. In some parts of the north where there is a lot of snow, it is piled so high beside the highway that it creates a tunnel effect and the moose have no place to escape from approaching vehicles and thusly become prime collision targets. Another reason moose (and other animals) prefer roadways is that they like to lick the salt which is put down to melt the snow and ice.

Most people do not know that due to a moose being much taller then a deer, moose eyes do not reflect vehicle headlights like deer at your eye level do which makes moose spotting that much more difficult at night

In terms of being prepared for travel in remote areas, having a vehicle in good shape, which includes winter tires...not all season types if you travel in snow and mountain country. Having extra food, water, warm clothing, sleeping bags, blankets, proper footwear and other kit in your car (which has been discussed here many times) can make a big world of difference in regards to your safety and comfort if you find yourself stranded after hitting any wildlife or perhaps when you have become lost or your vehicle simply breaks down et al.

Finally and more or less on topic, hitting a full size bear (upwards of 600 lbs around here for black bears) at speed with today's smaller vehicles is also very hazardousness and in some areas it is the highest cause of morality rates of these animals.

Notice the hatchet on the front seat? I wonder what it hacked as it flew up there?

I also carry a hatchet among other things in the truck, but all of it is containerized in a rubbermaid tote and cargo-netted to the floor in the back.

Another really tricky and dangerous animal at night is bison. I know bison no longer roam as they did in the past, but every summer I am driving through Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park (Black Hills of South Dakota). I can guarantee they blend in exquisitely with the highway asphalt. A collision with one - a fully grown bull weighs in the vicinity of 4,000 pounds - would be nasty.

Bison herds use the roads for travel and I can vouch that, not only "you can't roller skate in a buffalo herd" you can only wend your way through them at maybe 5 mph.

A hatchet is a useful tool, but it would be foolhardy to carry one loose in a vehicle, lest it be thrown around and cause injury.
In this case, perhaps the hatchet was used by the vehicle ocupants, or their rescuers, and discarded or forgoten when the photos were taken.
If the moose was not killed outright, I hope someone had the decency to shoot it.

I am glad that we dont have moose here ! similar accidents have occured with domestic cattle however.

Gawd, that's nasty. Those pictures sent a cold shiver down my spine.

EDIT: Why the heck didn't the airbags deploy?

Doug - The moose being as tall as it is, the airbag controls in the bumpers probably never came into play.

And holeee crap on toast. I can only hope the people involved were ok.

I wonder how the moose was struck to end up positioned like that in the minivan? You think the minivan came up from behind the moose and it crashed hind-first through the windshield?

Or they hit it such a way that the shoulder hit the roll cage at the windsheild and pivoted. The fact that there is a moose head and a hatchet in the driver's seat kinda worries me that this is one where they didn't need to call for a medivac by air.

I've seen cars that tangles with moose, and the car always loses. (Including pictures of one Volvo that looked awfully cute to a bull in rut- I'd hate to have to explain THAT to my insurance agent.) Smaller pickups and SUVs lose. Full sized pickups lose to. In fact, everything smaller than long haul rig or a freight train loses.

Remember folks- moose are stupid, mostly blind, and too tall see on the road. And a bull in rut is one of the scariest animals I can think of in North America short of a polar bear. I've also seen a small building a bull during rutting season, destroyed. There were both hoof and antler hits on the wood. I guess he thought it was another male.

Total guess but there probably wasn't enough impact at bumper level to trigger the sensors. It looks like they knocked the legs out from under it & momentum landed it on the hood, etc.

"I wonder how the moose was struck to end up positioned like that in the minivan? You think the minivan came up from behind the moose and it crashed hind-first through the windshield?"

The hindquarters are the heaviest part. If you throw something that has a heavy end and a lighter end, the heavy end will always lead.

Or, the moose and the car were going in the same direction, but the moose was slower.

Sue

I imagine it was brought by rescue personnel, and wasn't present when the crash happened.

People keep talking about polar bears

There ARE no polar bears

They are Cartesian Bears after a coordinate transform

I noticed that too. Older model? there certainly is proof of the driver hitting that steering wheel.

I have a feeling that driver made it to the hospital. It's amazing the damage cars can take and keep people safe.

WOW, that is a crazy set of pictures.

I happened to be in the Dept. of Motor Vehicles here in Maine yesterday. On the wall was a map of Maine, mostly covered with red dots. They were the record of Moose/Car incidents. I don't remember the time frame, but as I recall it was not long. Perhaps a two or 3 year period.

That night I did a long slow drive through the woods. The rare other vehicles would zoom up behind me and at the first opportunity blaze past. I spotted 2 deer, one raccoon, two skunks and two drunks. They seemed to be enjoying themselves walking along in dark clothing. No moose, but that map seemed to be stuck in my minds eye.

I am sure those folks in the speeeeedy cars were irritated my my slow progress. All along the ride I expected to top a hill and find a horror.

Driving at night in the deep woods is not a pleasant thing.

Nomad.

Scary, but then again it isn't just moose.

I came close to ending it by running into a couple of large black with a compact car doing 70mph an a cool fall night without a moon. What saved me was the reflection of my headlights in one of the cow's eyes. The glimmer of light caused me to slow down, and keep slowing down, until I saw the cows not 50 feet in front of me. I had to stop and honk my horn to get them off the road.

A farmer's fence was down in a rural area and his cows, I'm told about 1800 pounds each, were attracted to the warmth coming off the warm roadway. My car at the time weighed all of 1700 pounds. At 70 mph it is a fight I would have lost in a very big way.

Let's be careful out there.

Hitting moose is a big problem in Scandinavia, too. Which is why the Moose avoidance test was invented to see how well different cars would perform in this scenario:

First you avoid the moose by turning into the other lane, then you must get back into your own lane to avoid oncoming traffic.

As pointed out above, cows are a bit similar to moose in size/shape, and no more sensible.
Fatal accidents occur regularly between cows and cars, and cows can derail trains with loss of life.
This video shows the rescue efforts after a train hit a cow at about 80 MPH.
http://video.stv.tv/bc/news-090730-archive-polmont/

Cows are not as leggy.
I am not clear if Art's cows were laying down on the road or standing either.

People have mentioned how hard moose are to see and moose are counter colour camoflaged.
Even in the headlights they tend to match the look of the road because they are usually darker on top than they are on the legs.
At your eye height the dark body just looks like the rest of the night does and the legs look like the headlight glare reflecting back off the road.
In the fog, rain or snow it is worse

One winter night I counted 27 moose on the road between Wawa and Timmons.

Moose are big enough to kill transport trucks.

Anyhow, sane folks do not hunt large animals with their motor vehicles.
Slow down at night please.

The cows were standing on the road. Black cows on black, newly repaved, road, backed by scrub oaks so they where not skylighted, were just about invisible. At 70mph my bumper would have hit them in their knees and I have no doubt that one or more of them would have taken up residence in my lap.

To this day I'm not sure what it was about that small flash of light that caught my attention. I got lucky.

"I got lucky."

I have a lot of related stories, and too many personal close calls.

My father always tells the story of a neighbour's horse who had a talent for opening gates with his teeth (common problem BTW). The neighbour got tired of this and put a rope on his halter, dragging a dead tire on the rope. Kind of an anchor. Dad was bringing us home late in the evening, dead dark, and couldn't see the horse, but the tire caught his eye just in time. This, I guess, is one reason why I am still here.

i think it might be Sabb or one of those Swedish car companys that not only crash tests their cars onto a wall but onto a moose dummy made from heavy cable and rope.

Both Volvo and Saab do that:

Moose crash test