Ran over a medium size dog, no damage to bike but the dog went down. Had a bird fly into me from the side as I was going about 30mpg. My very first reaction was that I had been shot!

 

Agree with moving telephone booths, we have a ton of those. Yeah turtles, snakes, deer, & turkeys. Around here we have a lot of farmers w/tractors, trailers, machinery that move pretty slow, plus their livestock like the roadways too. Oh yeah the various trash from vehicles.

 

Deer are the worst but I've seen cows loose and in the road more than once. Coming around a bend and having a cow in front of you is not a good sight.

 

I hit a hawk in Michigan and broke my windshield,and when a cop came by to see if I was all right, he said if he had found the bird he would give me a ticket for killing it in the Harrisville state park. Thank you officer.

 

Riding with a group a few years back (I was lead bike at the time), about 8 of us I think, and a semi in front of us blew a tire near the back of his trailer. I heard it blow, saw it start to shred apart, and then the retread shot out of the back like a rocket.

Fortunately I backed off when I heard it blow..........

 

Yard sharks (dogs) on the back roads, exploding gators (truck recaps) on the highway. Took a bat, (the eek eek kind) to the chest one night, looked like batman till I worked him free.

 

Riding at work, I center-punched a Rubbermaid trashcan at @ 50mph that had blown into the roadway at night...




It lodged under the front wheel, basically becoming a "ski" for about 50 ft....until both it and the bike exited stage right. Bent and ground-down engine and saddlebag guards on both sides, rashed bag lids, and scraped the windshield. I wound up with just a broken hand and bruised hip (where I landed on my radio).

 

I'm in the Chicago NW burbs and I see more deer around here than in the north woods of Wisconsin.

Asked some LEO buddies about that and they gave me some stats -- If anywhere near correct, IL has, by far, the most deer vs. vehicle incidents anywhere. Peak season, well over 100 per day. On average, around 25,000 per year.

Never would've guessed.

 

Pheasants, lots of really big healthy ones here. Been real lucky so far and dodged one a few weeks ago on the RG. Not so lucky with my Ranger. Had one fly into my left front end as I was driving home (~ 80 mph) and pretty much roasted the grill and headlight bezel. I don't even want to think what my bike would have looked like.

The other thing we have here is big nasty tumbleweeds - I whacked one in New Mexico 3 weeks ago and was surprised it didn't bend the front fender - you learn to dodge them when you can but eventually, the law of averages sides with the tumbleweed...

 

Here in central Cal the dairy farms are abundant. The farmers often transport the cows in their livestock trailers, you know the ones...they have holes and openings all over em. We've learned that when you come up on one, you pass very quickly and leave plenty of room on the side. Nothing worse then being surprized by the sudden yellow stream spewing from the trailer.