Ran over a cat and knackered my car...
Discussion
Coming back from the train staion on Thursday and I ran over a cat. I have exploded a rabbit before but never hit a family pet. The little blighter sped out from under a tree on the left hand side of the road five yards or so in front of me.
As he shot into view, I stomped on the brakes and swerved a bit. The car (my Focus RS) thumped to a stop with the ABS chiming away and the hazard lights flashing. Fortunately I was only doing 40km/h, or so (if that) but unfortunately, I still caught the luckless feline with the right hand front of the car.
There was a thump and the cat was sprung a meter or so in front of the car. He landed on his feet and immediately shot off into the hedge on the opposite side of the road to which he started his perilous dash.
I found his owner and we both looked for him to no avail (it was dark). Hope he's OK.
Got round to checking the car out today. The black plastic had been popped off it's mounts (soon clipped back in) but the wire mesh is all dinted in and has bent some of the plastic in as a result. I'll try and sort it with a pair of needle nose pliers before I start going the insurance route. I reckon I can fix it myself.
I have has pets run over myself and know how awful the experience is. I know this is PH but I just hope the cat is OK.
As he shot into view, I stomped on the brakes and swerved a bit. The car (my Focus RS) thumped to a stop with the ABS chiming away and the hazard lights flashing. Fortunately I was only doing 40km/h, or so (if that) but unfortunately, I still caught the luckless feline with the right hand front of the car.
There was a thump and the cat was sprung a meter or so in front of the car. He landed on his feet and immediately shot off into the hedge on the opposite side of the road to which he started his perilous dash.
I found his owner and we both looked for him to no avail (it was dark). Hope he's OK.
Got round to checking the car out today. The black plastic had been popped off it's mounts (soon clipped back in) but the wire mesh is all dinted in and has bent some of the plastic in as a result. I'll try and sort it with a pair of needle nose pliers before I start going the insurance route. I reckon I can fix it myself.
I have has pets run over myself and know how awful the experience is. I know this is PH but I just hope the cat is OK.
I hope the cat was ok 
I hit a cat a few years back, while driving my otherhalfs mums car along a fast section of A road...we stopped and went back to check it wasn't suffering but thankfully killed it stone dead instantly, I felt like s
t for doing that to someones pet
I hit a cat a few years back, while driving my otherhalfs mums car along a fast section of A road...we stopped and went back to check it wasn't suffering but thankfully killed it stone dead instantly, I felt like s
t for doing that to someones pet Edited by y2blade on Saturday 26th February 20:13
y2blade said:
I hope the cat was ok
Me too. I think so. He bounced off the front of the car (clearly the plastic and mesh deformed considerably, making the energy transfer less violent). He landed on his feet a meter or so in front of the car and shot off. I reckon he's OK. I'd be gutted if anything happened to him as a result. The owner of the cat was a nice bloke. Thanked me for stopping and said most people wouldn't bother. Sadly, I know this to be true. Late last year, I was driving to the vets with one of my own cats who was seriously ill. Just a few hundred yards from my house I saw a black and white cat lying in literally in the middle of the road having been hit by a car. The driver that hit the cat clearly had not bothered to stop, nor had any other ba$tard that drove by subsequently. There was no excuse. It's a narrow road and you had to swerve round the cat to pass by or drive over the top of it.
What made it worse was that the cat belonged to a friend of SWMBO and I - a little old lady in her late 80's that lives in our village on her own. Worse still, she was stood on her front doorstep looking at her cat in the middle of the road too petrified and upset to go and get him whilst ignorant f*cks just drove by.
I stopped the car in the middle of the road to prevent more morons from driving by and got out to fetch the cat. Sadly, he was dead. I took him over to the old lady who was in floods of tears and placed him by the edge of her lawn. She said her son was on his way to come and get the cat.
She thanked us for stopping and told us how dozens of cars had passed by and not bothered.
We had a chat with her and reassured her before going on our way - We would have waited but as mentioned, SWMBO and I had our own cat who was very ill in the car, en-route to an emergency appontment at the vets.
I hear later the old lady's cat was buried in the woods local to us.
What a wonderful present that must have been for her, just a week or so before Christmas. It saddens and angers me that nobody bothered to stop. I couldn't live with myself injuring someones pet and just driving off.
alcovrugbyfan said:
I hope you will send the cat owner the bill for the damage? The thing should have been locked in.
Mind you I hate cats so Im biased!
Cats have their own lives. You can't really control them and as such, owners must take responsibility for any problems they cause, including damage to other people's property. If I wasn't such a softie pet lover then I'd probably have had a word with the owner but I'm just happy I didn't smear the feline down the road. The damage is purely cosmetic and will fix up easily.Mind you I hate cats so Im biased!
Being a bit anal about the condition in which I keep my cars, I will forver see the minute distortion in the grille unless I sort it properly. Oh well, that's tomorrow's job lined up. Grovelling under the front of my car in the rain trying to fix it...!!!
Roop said:
Me too. I think so. He bounced off the front of the car (clearly the plastic and mesh deformed considerably, making the energy transfer less violent). He landed on his feet a meter or so in front of the car and shot off. I reckon he's OK. I'd be gutted if anything happened to him as a result. The owner of the cat was a nice bloke. Thanked me for stopping and said most people wouldn't bother.
Sadly, I know this to be true. Late last year, I was driving to the vets with one of my own cats who was seriously ill. Just a few hundred yards from my house I saw a black and white cat lying in literally in the middle of the road having been hit by a car. The driver that hit the cat clearly had not bothered to stop, nor had any other ba$tard that drove by subsequently. There was no excuse. It's a narrow road and you had to swerve round the cat to pass by or drive over the top of it.
What made it worse was that the cat belonged to a friend of SWMBO and I - a little old lady in her late 80's that lives in our village on her own. Worse still, she was stood on her front doorstep looking at her cat in the middle of the road too petrified and upset to go and get him whilst ignorant f*cks just drove by.
I stopped the car in the middle of the road to prevent more morons from driving by and got out to fetch the cat. Sadly, he was dead. I took him over to the old lady who was in floods of tears and placed him by the edge of her lawn. She said her son was on his way to come and get the cat.
She thanked us for stopping and told us how dozens of cars had passed by and not bothered.
We had a chat with her and reassured her before going on our way - We would have waited but as mentioned, SWMBO and I had our own cat who was very ill in the car, en-route to an emergency appontment at the vets.
I hear later the old lady's cat was buried in the woods local to us.
What a wonderful present that must have been for her, just a week or so before Christmas. It saddens and angers me that nobody bothered to stop. I couldn't live with myself injuring someones pet and just driving off.
very sady Sadly, I know this to be true. Late last year, I was driving to the vets with one of my own cats who was seriously ill. Just a few hundred yards from my house I saw a black and white cat lying in literally in the middle of the road having been hit by a car. The driver that hit the cat clearly had not bothered to stop, nor had any other ba$tard that drove by subsequently. There was no excuse. It's a narrow road and you had to swerve round the cat to pass by or drive over the top of it.
What made it worse was that the cat belonged to a friend of SWMBO and I - a little old lady in her late 80's that lives in our village on her own. Worse still, she was stood on her front doorstep looking at her cat in the middle of the road too petrified and upset to go and get him whilst ignorant f*cks just drove by.
I stopped the car in the middle of the road to prevent more morons from driving by and got out to fetch the cat. Sadly, he was dead. I took him over to the old lady who was in floods of tears and placed him by the edge of her lawn. She said her son was on his way to come and get the cat.
She thanked us for stopping and told us how dozens of cars had passed by and not bothered.
We had a chat with her and reassured her before going on our way - We would have waited but as mentioned, SWMBO and I had our own cat who was very ill in the car, en-route to an emergency appontment at the vets.
I hear later the old lady's cat was buried in the woods local to us.
What a wonderful present that must have been for her, just a week or so before Christmas. It saddens and angers me that nobody bothered to stop. I couldn't live with myself injuring someones pet and just driving off.
some real aholes out there aren't there hi.roop,its not too nice when you hit something,cats are pretty resilient creatures,with 9 lives.maybe it still has 8 to go.
where i live,the danger is deer.if you hit one of these,its generally a write off.
i drive a focus 2L tdci and although it may be shunned by die hard petrol heads,i reckon the combination of lots of torque with plenty of miles to the gallon,is pretty hard to beat for everyday use.
i wondered how long the front tires last on your RS.i have got through some michelins on the front in about 12000 miles,and thats not using the turbo all the time.
i have had some bridgestone tyres fitted,and the grip is amazing compared to michelins,its like driving a different car.
one major nuisance with my car is that it does not have a separate clock,only one that is built into the sony radio and no-one seems to know how to set.i would have gladly paid out some more money to have the conveniance of a proper time piece in the dash.
where i live,the danger is deer.if you hit one of these,its generally a write off.
i drive a focus 2L tdci and although it may be shunned by die hard petrol heads,i reckon the combination of lots of torque with plenty of miles to the gallon,is pretty hard to beat for everyday use.
i wondered how long the front tires last on your RS.i have got through some michelins on the front in about 12000 miles,and thats not using the turbo all the time.
i have had some bridgestone tyres fitted,and the grip is amazing compared to michelins,its like driving a different car.
one major nuisance with my car is that it does not have a separate clock,only one that is built into the sony radio and no-one seems to know how to set.i would have gladly paid out some more money to have the conveniance of a proper time piece in the dash.
phil wilkins said:
hi.roop,its not too nice when you hit something,cats are pretty resilient creatures,with 9 lives.maybe it still has 8 to go.
where i live,the danger is deer.if you hit one of these,its generally a write off.
i drive a focus 2L tdci and although it may be shunned by die hard petrol heads,i reckon the combination of lots of torque with plenty of miles to the gallon,is pretty hard to beat for everyday use.
i wondered how long the front tires last on your RS.i have got through some michelins on the front in about 12000 miles,and thats not using the turbo all the time.
i have had some bridgestone tyres fitted,and the grip is amazing compared to michelins,its like driving a different car.
one major nuisance with my car is that it does not have a separate clock,only one that is built into the sony radio and no-one seems to know how to set.i would have gladly paid out some more money to have the conveniance of a proper time piece in the dash.
Hello chap. I think the cat will be OK. I had shed the majority of my already low speed before I bumped into him.where i live,the danger is deer.if you hit one of these,its generally a write off.
i drive a focus 2L tdci and although it may be shunned by die hard petrol heads,i reckon the combination of lots of torque with plenty of miles to the gallon,is pretty hard to beat for everyday use.
i wondered how long the front tires last on your RS.i have got through some michelins on the front in about 12000 miles,and thats not using the turbo all the time.
i have had some bridgestone tyres fitted,and the grip is amazing compared to michelins,its like driving a different car.
one major nuisance with my car is that it does not have a separate clock,only one that is built into the sony radio and no-one seems to know how to set.i would have gladly paid out some more money to have the conveniance of a proper time piece in the dash.
Not sure on tyre life. Although I have had the car 19 months, I have only done 9,000km and I tend to drive like an old dear, as such the tyres look just about scrubbed in.
As for the clock, my car has a seperate clock on the dashboard (within the LCD matrix display), but SWMBO's previous car - a 2005 Focus 2 litre didn't. It was on the radio - a Ford 6000CD. There'll be a setting for the clock on your radio. A lot of the time, those functions must be set whilst the radio is switched off. That was the case for a Sony I had in one of my cars many moons ago.
I found my glorious little cat ran over a day before Silverstone last year. When I saw her, I knew immediately it was her, what a horrible feeling. Pulled the car over as quickly as I could in a safe spot, dashed over and there she was, dead. I try not to show my emotion but I couldn't help myself, she was just the sweetest little creature you could ever ask to meet. It didn't help when mum arrived and broke down too. Placing her body in her box and walking her home is one of the most heartbreaking things I've done, or ever will do.
A fury one at that, and not enough arms. robsco said:
I found my glorious little cat ran over a day before Silverstone last year. When I saw her, I knew immediately it was her, what a horrible feeling. Pulled the car over as quickly as I could in a safe spot, dashed over and there she was, dead. I try not to show my emotion but I couldn't help myself, she was just the sweetest little creature you could ever ask to meet. It didn't help when mum arrived and broke down too. Placing her body in her box and walking her home is one of the most heartbreaking things I've done, or ever will do.
It's a cat. Grow up, people bury thier children everyday, a million times worse.
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