I purchased my 2012 Prius C on November 27th, last year. Since then I have about 3,000 miles on it, and I really enjoy the little car. There is a slight issue that I've been having lately though; I have hit 3 squirrels, and this morning an opossum ran out in front of me, making for a total of 4 kills in the past month. I've never driven TOWARDS animals, so please don't assume I'm sort of sadistic jerk who finds pleasure out of that sort of crap.. I try to steer away from them but it all happens so quickly that it's unavoidable.. This is sort of a strange problem that almost sounds fake. If I hadn't experienced this myself, I'm not sure I would have believed it was possible.. But I feel as though the only thing it could be, would be the car is simply too quiet, since the majority of the time it happens in the afternoon (5ish, on the way home from work.) This morning was around 6am, which was the opossum, and it was dark out. Being in Florida, deer aren't really an issue, but I have ordered some deer whistles (funny, I had never heard of such a thing until a friend from Massachusetts told me about them..) so I'm hoping that will mitigate the issue, but I was just wondering if anybody else is having this problem..? Literally the animals are running right into my car, almost as if they are timing it.. I'm not sure if they are trying to cross, and the quiet car throws off their jive, or what the issue is.. I just thought I'd see what other folks think of this issue.
we have lots of squirrels, and they are all over the road. dead. and plenty of other animals.but i have never hit one. you are overthinking this, but could probably add a noisemaker without too much trouble if you want to try experimenting.
Well I live in central Florida out in the woods and have yet to hit a animal. I've had my car a year.
Strange. I'm not sure what the deal is. I'm not too concerned about it I suppose, but when you tally up a kill every week for the past month, you start to wonder. I haven't seen anything mentioned, so I figured I'd ask. gmcneil, I too live in the woods, which I thought sort of contributed to my issue. Perhaps it's just bad luck.
i would probably think the same way. when i see all the roadkill, maybe i should be wondering why i'm not hitting any?
You should content yourself in knowing that you are helping Nature to genetically select for smarter squirrels.
No animal problems with my Prii, except that the VPNS makes it harder to creep up on wild animals for better pictures. They were less alarmed by my first Prius. The last animal I ran over, a squirrel, was with my bicycle. It backed off from my wife twice, then darted again as she passed, not seeing me right behind. After bouncing up into the chainring, it scampered up the nearest tree and unleashed its entire dictionary of squirrel vulgarities at me.
I've owned 3 Prius now since 2006 and roadkill has never seemed to be an abnormally significant issue. In fact, it has never been an issue with any of them.
Well heres my story. A few days after I bought my C the neighbors decided it would be a good idea to trim the trees next door. And failed to tell me to move the cars so there was SAW DUST ALL OVER my new c in every little spot it could find. Ok fine so I leave for work early that day and since I had come from an SUV I wasn't quite used to the size of the car just yet and as I was driving along I saw a dead possum of some sort on the road and so naturally to avoid it I did what I thought was avoiding the damn thing but only to find I missed and ran an already dead carcass over with my new c. I also had the windows down and I heard it SQUISH! It was so disgusting so I immediately pull over and begin to look underneath the car and inside the wheel wells and to my surprise there was not one drop of blood or guts or anything from that carcass.
I live on a road where the squirrels and the deer play... haven't had the deer/raccoon/squirrel/possum/skunk vs Prius match up but my truck has steamrollered a few squirrels while they were not capable of making a decision to cross or not to cross. I rolled a 4 point deer over the hood and roof of my former 1994 Corolla with just a dent in the hood where said deer's rump roast first hit before the rollover... and the deer survived! My former home in NY was very rural and lots of interesting critters also called it home.
One more & you'e an Ace. The squirrel has to be the dumbest most indecisive animal on the road. It stops. Maybe it runs right. Maybe it runs left. Then it decides to run right in front of a tire. A noisemaker isn't going to help. Don't sweat the small stuff. I've had three near misses with Bambi. Goose, turkey, and deer are my most likely encounters.
I have actually had more near-misses in this car (purchased in July), and I have had the experience of rolling through a parking lot and surprising birds- startled crows do a double-take (I think) because I am closer than they thought I should be...
Never try to swerve to avoid an animal, you could lose control and wreck your car. Your life is WAY more valuable than the animals and you would be much safer to try and stop (as long as you wouldn't get rear ended) or just run over the animal. If it is a moose or a huge deer then do whatever you can to avoid it because you will probably loose in that battle.
Not with my Prius c, but in my lifetime, I have ran over a squirl, a rabbit, and a possum. just once each.
You may want to re-think this a little bit, at least where squirrels and wabbits are concerned. I always apply the NASCAR rule when it comes to these little guys.....and I almost always miss them. Since I'm moving...and my fellow mammal is also moving as fast as he (or she) can, then by the time I get there they won't be there any longer. The problem is that they think that you're trying to eat them and they're always going to try some last ditch jinks just about the time that you're also maneuvering to avoid a collision. Of course...since I work evenings and nights in come pretty rural areas I'm almost always turning some little animal into pavement pate during any given month. It's simply unavoidable unless you want to switch to bi-ped transportation. Just be thankful that you're not on a bike! I know people who have gone down because of something the size of an opossum on the road which is why you'll never see me on a bike without full riding gear. Probably the single thing (besides $$$) that keeps me being a Prius driver instead of a Prius owner is the fact that Priuses have a very low ground clearance and a glass jaw. Squirrels and Wabbits aren't too bad but a Possum on a half shell (Armidillo) can set you back four figures if you're not careful! I remember when I lived in South Carolina some years back they had a huge problem with deer strikes on the highways in that state. That's just about the time that they came out with the deer whistles. I remember reading where the SC did a study involving deer whistles and the State Police and they actually recorded a higher rate of deer strikes with the whistles than without. YMMV. I know one thing.....If I'm going to hit Bambi (ironic name for a deer btw... ) I'd much rather do it with my dumb old piuckemuptruck.
