[Abyssinian1]

Originally Posted by Tishrei

this is so sad. I also had a similar experience. I was on the city street in Los Angeles at a dead stop (traffic light). Anyway, there was a car coming from the opposite direction and I saw him hit a bird. They bird lay there flapping but was obviously totally injured. I jumped out of my car with something, picked him up and took him to the vet. Unfortunately by the time we got to the vet, he had died.

I'll never forget him laying on the floor of my car looking at me before he finally breathed his last.

I think it says something about the character of a person as to what they do in a situation like that. The driver of the car that hit that bird probably never looked back, or if he/she did, they might have thought "It's only a bird".

You, however, stopped, took the bird into your car and took on the responsibility of trying to get medical attention for it. Even though the bird died, at the least, you were there for it and it died in the presence of someone who cared. There probably wasn't anything you could have done save for what you did and maybe that is enough. Please don't beat yourself up.

It is too bad that in most states, motor vehicle laws are such that if the choice is to either swerve to avoid an animal and possibly cause an accident or hit the animal and keep traffic flowing the law requires that you hit the animal. I remember about ten years ago I had an ex-fiancee who lived in Nederland (it's about 20 minutes up Boulder Canyon on Hwy 19 going south by southwest). Boulder Canyon is very narrow in spots and it is hard enough trying to avoid the bikers up and down the length of it, let alone the wildlife I used to see along the side of the road. While driving at night I encountered mule deer, an elk, raccoon, coyote and a couple of stray dogs wandering by the side of the road, sometimes grazing and sometimes just making their way up and down the canyon, using the shoulder as a pathway. The speed limit is 30 miles per hour, but I know from experience that the mountain dwellers and their big SUV's took that canyon at twice the posted speed. The way that people drive, as if they were entitled to their share of the road drove me nuts (no pun intended) and there were times, in my little 4-cylinder car, that I felt as if I was going to become a casualty of the road myself. Nothing like a big SUV with its brights on coming up at 60 mph behind you and not only tailgating you down the mountain but trying to force you onto the shoulder so that it can pass. I'm not sure what it is in some people's psyche's that goes haywire once they get behind the wheel of a car - it is if personal responsibility and accountability for safety go out the window.