madfiNch

I was riding home today and about 1/3 of the way through my commute I was on this paved trail that kind of goes through the woods. I saw the squirrel beside the path, and usually I'll ring my bell to scare them off, but the bike I was riding didn't have a bell! It ran right in front of me so fast - there was nothing I could do! Oh my God. The sound it made when I ran it over!! I didn't stop or turn around or anything. There's no way I could have brought myself to do what would've needed to be done if it was still alive!
I cried all the way home. I'm sure people that saw me thought I was a little weird. When I got home, my boyfriend was freaking out because he thought I had been hit by a car or something because I was so upset!! Then he made me drink a lot of wine.
Ugh. I feel terrible. I'm never riding a bike without a bell ever again.

Please don't call me stupid. I know I probably sound that way, but I love animals. I would never hurt anything on purpose!

Boudicca

I swear I read this exact same post on this exact same forum about 3 years ago.

Strange things squirrels.

freeradical

Whoa, that sucks. Seriously, you obviously did not intend to harm him/her, but stuff happens. And besides, you don't REALLY know that the little fuzzball won't recover, right. I mean, it's not like getting run over by a car, so it might be ok. Squirrels (and other small mammals) tend to be pretty resilient creatures.

Don't beat yourself up, I mean.....you DID have the right-of-way

Boudicca

And don't beat yourself up over the bell. It might have been a deaf squirrel, so it wouldn't have heard the bell anyway.

Longfemur

I'm sure there was nothing you could do. There are lots of squirrels on my regular loop. I've had many close calls with them this year. They run right out in front of you at the last second. It's impossible to stop and not enough time to swerve (and swerving might just make you run over it anyway). And when it's not a squirrel, it's birds. The other day, a gull decided to take off suddenly and fly right into the side of my front wheel as I was riding by at a fast clip. It reversed itself quickly, and looking back, I saw it fly, so I hope it wasn't hurt. I don't know what I would do to put a badly injured squirrel out of its misery under those circumstances. I mean, there's no way I could just bash it to death. I would probably end up just riding home feeling very badly, as you did.

Mr. Underbridge

'Tis the season!

Don't feel dumb for feeling bad. I've only hit a vertebrate once - squirrel - in a car. Made a nice little thud. I felt bad all day.

On my bike, I'm less concerned with little Rocky's safety than the proposition of doing an endo when he jams my spokes. I haven't noticed the rodent population going completely bonkers here yet, I imagine I've got a month.

norco_rider77

most rodents can fit through anything, if their heads makes it, they make it. so as long as his guts didnt shoot out, he might be fine. and there's lots of squirrels anyway, one less isnt that big of a deal.

if you want to, go out there or somewhere with squirrels, and take a bag of peanuts. just sit on a bench and set some peanuts next to you. if theyre friendly, theyll come over, and even eat out of your hand. i used to do this at campgrounds sometimes.

madfiNch

Thanks you guys. You're being very nice. I'm sure I hurt it pretty bad. I definitely felt/heard bones getting crushed!!
I'm going to go fill up the bird feeder in my yard that the birds never eat from (thanks to the squirrels) for karma points...

Lurch

I've seen squirrels survive some pretty drastic injuries. Many have been found with old healed fractures from falls and I've seen some that have definite residual impairments but seem to do well anyway. Be glad you didn't go back to help though. He probably wouldn't have taken your approach in the spirit it was intended. Between their teeth and claws, they can inflict a lot of damage on attackers. As far as using a bell goes, most any loud noise such as shouting should work. It's not like squirrels will take offense at being yelled at.

divergence

I'm glad you weren't hurt, and I hope the squirrel lived to tell the tale. (Over on squirrelforums.net, where he's claiming that he totally had the right of way.)

I've noticed something similar around here: for about a two-week period in late summer, some biological switch goes off in squirrels' brains, and they're compelled to wait till the last possible moment, then dart madly across my path. Never happens any other time of the year (well, rarely happens), but in late august and early september, I might dodge a dozen suicide squirrels on the descent from my work back into town.

chephy

I never had any success scaring squirrels away by ringing a bell. I wish it was that simple. If they don't run away from a big scary thing rolling towards them, why would they run away from a little bell? I think maybe it was just coincidence before: whenever you rang a bell before, the squirrel chose to run away from your bike, but it could easily have chosen to jump under your wheels, as this one did today.

You see, by jumping right into your path dem squirrels think they are fooling you, the big silly predator who thinks the squirrel will run away into the woods. Little do they know that you're not interested in chasing them in attempts to eat them or run them over. Don't feel bad. Sometimes it just happens and there is nothing you could do about it.

Bikepacker67

You're lucky the Darwin award winner didn't get caught in your spokes and send you careening into pavement.

LittleBigMan

Avoiding a squirrel can take some skill. Sometimes impossible.

Zero_Enigma

I've never run over a squirrel before but I have almost crashed a few times. Once I almost lost control over a side of the trail that rolls down about 5-7 meters through what I saw was garbage, glass, and brush into a river/creek.

So many times as many people have said these little critters run out at literally the last second that you almost can not avoid them. I've run over many a road kill before but they are already dead before I got there and often traffic around did not give me enough room to evade. I feel bad but at the same time I hope they did not suffer and passed on quickly.

If this helps, if you're able to spot the squirrel a little bits away or as you're coming close see if you can lift the front of your wheel in a slight lift but not pull a wheelie. Like jumping a curb/pothole lift is what I'm taking about. I find that many a squirells see you moving up and down and they end to run away then, then in front of you.

Another tip someone told me before (pending if you have pockets) is to pick up a few small pebbles and keep in the pocket. As you approach the squirrel on the road/trail that is on the path throw a pebble down range. Yes by-passers by may think evil of you but you know you're just startling the squirrel away as you're faster then they are. Hey who knows, you might get a headshot for 100 points. If you do get consistant headshots then you might want go to the carnie games more often and clean house for the stuffed prizes!

On a side note, reminds me of the time I got kicked out from playing a carnie game that you fish for the red magnetic puck in a sea of yellow pucks in running water. You always win a prize there if you get the yellow which was some stuffed snake. A red puck won you a mid-size prize. The prize system was 3 snakes trades up to one mid-size stuffed prize. If you have 3 mid-sized prizes you can trade up for 1 large stuffed prize. It was something like $5 for two tries if I recall right. I got a family of wolves, some snakes (which I call wolf food ), a large wolf, and a large aligator. Not bad when I think about it. I think I had the winning hand then as mid-sized prizes probably costed them ~$1.50-$2/unit and large prizes $5/unit so they wanted more people to win the ~$0.50 cent snakes to make more money.

Artkansas 

Don't beat yourself up. Squirrels are completely unpredictable. A bell probably won't help with squirrels though bells are required in many places including Little Rock.

Two weeks ago I was cresting a hill and saw a pack of cars coming in the other direction. Suddenly as the pack of cars went by, a squirrel dashed out and under the middle car with fatal results. A few seconds before or after and it would have been fine. It didn't even run out in the road till after the cars were going by.

About all you can do is if you see a squirrel is to maintain your course. Trying to maneuver to account for it won't work because a squirrel can change it's mind three times in the time you can make a decision.

kimolop

Where I live is inundated with squirrels. I swear that some of them are hell bent on "suicide by bike"! That being said, I hit one once, and still felt terrible.

MichaelW

I had a collision with a squirel , the creature was being very indecisive: I'll cross, no I'll wait, no I'll cross. here comes a bike, I'll wait, heck, just go for it. He ran straight into the side of my front weel and bounced off. He ran off so I dont think he was injured.

smontanaro 

Like others I agree there's not much you can do. Better to save yourself than the squirrel. I hit a squirrel once and have had lots of other close encounters with them. They seem to have an innate evasion pattern built into their little rodent brains. When they think they are being chased by a big critter (and a person on a bike going 10-20 mph must look like one helluva big fox) they run for the nearest tree. That is often not away from the big critter then are trying to avoid. They also often do this double-back thing where they reverse direction at the last minute. That's how I hit one. He (had to be a guy, could've auditioned for a Bud Light commercial) had successfully crossed my path. If he had just kept going he probably would have made it (across the street to his tree), but at the last moment he doubled back and ran right under my front wheel. (Maybe he saw an even bigger critter - a car.) Evolution has probably selected for that behavior because it works more often than not with foxes, dogs, wolves, coyotes, cats, etc (that is, big critters that really do to fricassee them), but the poor squirrel doesn't know we aren't trying to make them into dinner. Other rodents (rabbits, chipmunks) seem to have evolved different instinctive evasion techniques. Rabbits zig zag but always generally move away from you. Chipmunks head straight for the nearest cover, generally also away from you. Neither seems to reverse direction.

Skip Montanaro

Winter76

A squirrel paced me for a while once. my speedo said 18kmph and we were pretty even for about 30 seconds before he wised up and went into the bush. It was neat to see how fast they could run.

aMull

Why didn't you slow down?

LastPlace

I spent my teenage years in a orphanage and my houseparent was Miss Little. She had saved for years to buy a car and about six months after she bought her Valiant(?) she was coming back to the cottage and a squirrel ran out in front of her and she swerved, went down a bank and totaled her car.

We were not sure about the squirrel, but she was a mess. You could have been hurt pretty badly if you had tacoed the front wheel or gone off the road/path.

Sorry about the squirrel, but these things happen. It is nice to see people who care about animals, even if they did cause me to buy a $75 dollar bird feeder to keep them from eating all the seed!!!

sherpa93

Miss Little totaled the Valiant Squirrels - suicidal little creatures. Aim right at em. Do your best to hit em and you never will. I hit a possum at 10 mph and won 5 days and 5 nights at in a room without a view for about $3000 a night. They can do as much damage to us as we can to them...

JoeyMac

I am a vegetarian, and I wish no harm upon on any animals... but at the same time, squirrels are just rats in cuter costumes....

CommuterRun

Don't worry about it. You didn't intend to hit the squirrel. The squirrel got hit because it made a bad decision at the wrong time.

Even if it died, it didn't go to waste. It just started over at the bottom of the food chain. That's natures way.

seeker333

Squirrels do that. Bell probably wouldn't help. Maybe they're far-sighted. I once had one run between my wheels on a bike path.

Had a rabbit run beside me once for about 50 feet @ 20mph. I just knew that thing was coming under my wheels. Finally it went left into some tall grass.

I've had 3 dogs come after me, trying for my feet/legs, don't stop in time, and end up under rear wheel. I kept the bike upright, the dogs ran away yelping.

Had several close calls with deer - I know there's a deer out there with my name on it.

Cats seem to like sitting on quiet roads at night - maybe it's the heat from the asphalt. They'll sit dead still while I pass a couple feet away. Still waiting for one to jump in my front spokes.

Once driving home from gf's house @2am, it's super foggy / pitch black, on a 4 lane rural 55mph road, no traffic. I crest a hill, going slow for the fog, when I hear an odd sound - then all the sudden a big white horse comes out of the fog, running pretty much full out, in adjacent lane, going the wrong way. So the horse is 10 feet away to my left, doesn't pay any attention to me, keeps running. About 15 seconds / 500 feet goes by while I'm wondering how to get this horse safely off the road. We come up on an intersection, horse hangs a left as if he's done it a thousand times, I keep going straight.