Somebody Else's Car, Thank Goodness

[gerisullivan]

I regularly drive Routes 19 and 20 here in Massachusetts. That's US 20, the road I drove home tonight following a lovely afternoon and dinner with kipw, malibrarian, and their delightfully engaging daughter, Sarah. And it's State Road 19, which runs through the middle of Wales.

Tonight I'm very grateful I don't drive Route 12. The pertinent piece of it is 50-some miles away. But I would have been shocked by the CNN teaser headline no matter how close or far away the location:

"The moose is loose! And it's in my car!"

The video was even more shocking. I don't know how long CNN keeps video up, and also feel like I should warn LJ friends --they don't show this part, but the moose didn't make it. Me, I'm amazed that the moose survived long enough to be rescued from the car it came to be stuck in. And I'm amazed by just how composed the terrified moose looked as it more-or-less sat in the front passenger seat with its head sticking out from where the windshield used to be. The windshield itself had shattered on impact with the moose just moments before.

The car's driver escaped with minor cuts and scratches on her face. Only one of them required a couple of stitches. Heck, I ended up with 4 stitches after my face didn't stop as suddenly as my sled did.And a sled is nothing compared to a moose.

(Yes, I know, just because I don't drive Route 12 doesn't mean I'm safe from moose and other wildlife collisions.)

Color me croggled. And sad for the moose. And for the driver, too. Sometimes the story isn't worth the trauma, no matter how amazing the story itself is. Even if you have the pictures to prove it.

Comments

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I grew up very close to Route 12 in Leomonster.

I used to take the bus on Route 12 in West Boylston every day for over 12 years when I was in school. For many of those years, we drove by the Wachusett Reservoir every day. I only remember seeing one deer one time near the Reservoir in all those years. I've never seen a moose in Massachusetts (I lived in Massachusetts until 1993, about the time moose started to head out of the woods).

In fact, I never saw a moose in Maine, Vermont or New Hampshire either. The only time I remember seeing a moose as in the summer in the woods in southern Quebec in about 1965 or so.

Now, deer have always been pretty common here in Western Pennsylvania, though you normally see dead deer by the side of the road rather than live deer. We did had three deer visit our yard one day last spring:



In less than two months, we're moving from a close-in suburb of Pittsburgh to a an exurb by the airport. While we're living in a new housing development, it's surrounded by farmland and woods. I expect we'll see deer more than once in our yard once we're there!

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Makes me think of the time Geri Balter Debbie (nee Herman) Schouten & I were up in Alaska. We'd driven up to Fairbanks, and had just crossed the Anchorage city limits when we came this close to smackin' into a moose. Would have increase our traffic accident count for the trip by a third.

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

I've never come too close to hitting anything large while driving (though you certainly see a fair number of deer near roads in Pennsylvania).

Once, as a passenger in a rental car driving up to the zoo in Colorado Springs, we turned a corner and I looked up and saw a huge elk (antlers and all) in the road. Luckily, it was just standing there, but boy that was very impressive.