You heartless bastard

[LillFilly]

I was speaking to a store employee when they told me what happened a few days ago (I wasn't here).

The employee's coworker came in to work crying. They all asked her what was wrong, but she said they would laugh at her. She finally spilled the story.

She'd been driving into the parking lot. We have bushes and trees ringing the building. One large garden had had a mother mallard duck nesting for weeks.

Well, her eggs hatched, and the mother was leading them across the lot to the woods and water.

All the cars in the lot stopped for them. Except one. Which screeched around all the stopped cars in the line and blew past...

Running over 3-little ducklings.

I don't know exactly were it happened, because I looked around hoping to find their little bodies and lay them to rest. It seems like a good samaratine picked them-up though.

I only hope someone got the license plate. If I had seen that... The guy would no longer be driving. Because I would make sure he did not have use of his arms for a looong time.

I hope he burns.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Today on the way into work I either ran over or came really really close to running over a squirrel.

Two of them dashed out into the road as I was approaching and the second one was in the middle of the street as I drove past. I didn't feel a thump or anything and I didn't see anything lying dead in the road when I looked in my rear view mirror.

I didn't have much of a choice though. This was on a boulevard and I had somebody close behind me. My only other options were to swerve and hope I didn't hit a parked car or the curb, or slam on the brakes and hope I didn't get ass-ended by the car behind.

Still, this does not excuse what the guy in your story did. Not only did he squish three ducklings in his haste, but he also risked a head-on collision if somebody was exiting the lot from the same direction he was entering.

[freeatlast]

About a month ago, my daughter was on her way to her great aunt's funeral. She was travelling about 50 mph on a country road and a mallard duck came out on the road and she couldn't avoid hitting it. She was already upset about her great aunt and called me crying about the duck. She would take a change on having an accident to avoid hitting an animal, but she didn't even have a change to make that choice. Needless to say, she had a really bad day.

[blas]

I feel for ya. Around these parts of Wisconsin, we have some real inbreeds who take their hatred of cats to a whole new level by purposely running them over any time they see one in the road.

Sometimes when walking Bear, my parents will see a dead cat several feet by the side of the road, but it's apparent that something with bigger tires (hmmm a pick up truck maybe?) purposely swerved and ran the poor thing over.

"Yee gads Cletus looky here, a kitter cat! Lez a runnnit over! Yeehaw!"

[LillFilly]

This guy just had to be sick in the head. The area where this was has outlets and isles up the wazoo, so it's not like stopped traffic would have kept him from getting out of the lot. I don't know if he did it because he saw the ducks or was just impatient, but the least he could have done was stopped, or reported it.

[Gawdzillers]

I ran over a turtle once.
I thought it was a small rock.

[Elspeth]

aaawww that jerk. He should be hurt a lot.

I think the worst was the frogs. The hubby and I were coming back from St. Helens to the campground we were staying at. Well the heavens open and started to pour down rain. We were driving along and saw a lot of rocks in the road, we thought it was wierd. And then the rocks started to MOVE. Oh the horror. There was nothing we could do. We finally got back to the campsite and decieded to pack up because it was just not going to stop raining. We were pulling into the campground and this HUGE frog is pulling himself across the road. We come to a stop going "we can save you" and let him make his way across the road. We have never felt so bad. We shudder at the thought of it still and it has been at least 3 years now.

We still have problems with this.

[Gerrinson]

As for the guy in the OP, he's a jackass. And really, what if the other cars had been stopped to a couple of children cross? He's very lucky it was ducklings and not kids, because he would be in some deep

I think the worst was the frogs.

This happens here every year. The warm weather and rains come and the frogs migrate from <swamp on the left side of the road> to <swamp on the right side of the road>. I'm not sure why the other swamp is so much better, but hundreds of them die trying to get there.

After a couple years you learn to just suck it up and bull through them. It's that or just don't drive for a couple of weeks, which is really not feasible in a rural area.

[artifical sweetner]

the other day i slow down on an off-ramp to avoid running over roadkill - some giant animal vultures were already pecking at - and some douche car speeds up to get around me and is too late to slow down and runs right through it ... mmm musta smelt great

[bean]

I hit a squirrel for the first time a few years ago.

I was tooling along doing 35 (in a 35) on a side road.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a squirrel, slammed on the brakes (complete with locking up the tires, no antilock on that car), and... felt a thud.

I looked in my mirror and saw half of a squirrel still running across the road, dragging what looked like a furry pancake. If I'd killed it immediately it wouldn't have been as bad.


A slightly more humorous episode involving a deer

Last year I was in the middle of nowhere (about an hour outside of San Antonio, near Kerrville) at night. I saw something running alongside the road and thought "Oh shit, a deer, I'm going to stop."

I stopped. Completely stopped. Car was not moving at all, just idling.

Sure enough, the deer ran out of the woods. RIGHT AT ME. OH SHIT HE'S RUNNING AT MY CAR!

*THUMP* *car shakes, deer falls over* *deer gets back up and runs into the car again* *THUMP* *car shakes again* *deer gets up and runs back into the woods* I thought it was hilarious and cracked up. Until I parked my car and realized my drivers door wouldn't open.

Damn thing hit the drivers side fender so hard it was pushed in against the hinges, and the door was hitting the fender when I tried to open it. I wound up pulling into a parking lot and pulling the fender as hard as I could with my hands until the door would open again. Never did replace it, when I got home I removed it and straightened it out as much as I could with my hands. Looks a lot better now, still has a small dent at the top, but at least it lines up with the door again.

[bammertheblue]

I ran over a turtle once, too.
I was loping on horseback.
BIG

I ran over a turtle once.
I thought it was a small rock.

[dalesys]

My brother-in-law in Arco, ID ran over a badger with his gihugeous John Deere...

It chased him for a block snarling...

[KellyHabersham]

I quit taking my daughter to the McDonald's near my apartment for awhile because it seemed like every week (it was a Monday night thing for us) we'd come across a smashed cat body in bushes alongside that road. No idea what the circumstances might've been, but it always was in the same spot, and I had little respect for drivers in that area for a long time.

[IT Grunt]

Awwww, poor little things. There's a special place in hell for him, he'll get his due.

Mother ducks with their babies can be so cute. I'll never forget one time years ago on my first job, I was coming in to work and some people were gathered around one of the storm drains in the parking lot. There was a mother duck that would always nest on the grounds at our office (no idea where, she was a sly one, that duck!) Well, she'd hatched 9 ducklings, and they were so tiny that when she was leading them across the parking lot to the river that ran beside us, about 4 walked over that grate and fell in. Poor things were peeping like mad trying to get back out, but they couldn't fly. We all banded together and with a soup ladle from the cafeteria, we managed to get each one scooped up and lifted out. Mother duck was there the whole time, a few feet from us, quacking softly. I think in some way, she knew we were trying to help her babies. As we got each one up, we set it down away from the grate facing mom and they skittered as fast as they could to get to her, tripping over their own feet. She gave each one a quick check and cleaned off dirt, and thus satisfied that all were present and accounted for, continued on to the river.

That felt so good.

[LillFilly]

I just love the wildlife around where I work; it would be lonely without them. And I'm an animal lover. So I get protective and upset when people are cruel or mean to them. Even if it is 'just' a duck, or 'just' a deer.