Turtle Dodging - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

NCxM50 · 06-22-2009, 01:10 PM

As a side result of all the rain we've had lately, turtles are everywhere. I've been seeing at least 3 or 4 per day dead on the road on my way to and from work, and a half a dozen more that are still alive and making their way across the road. Personally, even while in the car, I try to avoid hitting them. We're not talking keep em for a pet in a shoebox turtles here. My mom hit one last year and the repair bill was just over 300 bucks due to damage to the exhaust on her car (insurance covered it under her comprehensive, but still).

On the bike, they're fairly easy to avoid, and I only pay enough attention to them to make sure I'm going around them, not over them. So after all of this rain over the past few weeks, I rode to work on Friday after having not been on the bike for almost two weeks. I'm on highway 17 (two lanes in each direction right through the dismal swamp) cruising at about 65 in the slow lane, no cars in front of me. Up ahead, 50 yards or so, I notice a turtle, but it's in the left lane, so thats the last I make of the turtle. In my mirror, I notice a car coming up fast in the passing lane (I'd guess 80-85mph).

Somehow, my brain did the math and realized he was going to hit the turtle around the same time as he passed me. Just as the car (mid sized 80's sedan) was about to pass me, another quick check confirmed this, and I braced for a potential splatter. Sure enough, the car passed me. Sure enough, he hit the turtle at a point about ten feet in front of my bike. What happened next happened so fast, I'm actually glad that I had NO time to react.

If the driver tried again 1,000 times, he couldn't have hit it more perfectly. Instead of crushing the turtle, he clipped the edge just enough to send it rocketing across the highway at blistering speeds. Somehow, it managed to scream through the space between my front tire and my frame, actually clipping my radiator in the process, which I felt slightly, but didn't actually hear. It then proceeded across 25-30 feet of shoulder, and well into the swamp before plopping down in the black water. I know this, because in some sort of trance, I watched every instant of that turtles flight.

I ended up pulling over at the rest stop not too much further up, because I think at some point, I had stopped breathing. After about 5 minutes to catch my breath, make sure my underwear was clean and check out where it had hit (stripped a bit of paint off one corner of the radiator and a tiny ding, no other damage), I proceeded to work. I've been driving for a long time, and I've seen some crazy stuff, but never anything like that. A wee bit faster, and that turtle could have easily busted my ankle. A wee bit slower, and it could have gone into the front wheel, and I don't even want to think about what potential for disaster that could have had.

So next time you see a turtle on the road, keep an eye on them buggers.