Memo to ourselves: If you hit an animal with your car, stop and clean it up. Pull it off the road. Keep a stick in your car if you’re squeamish about touching it. Keep a bigger stick in your car to dispatch a critter that is wounded.
If we drive a car, we’re responsible — in every way — for anything we hit.
It doesn’t matter if we’re squeamish, ladies or elderly. Not a bit.
It’s hit’n’run if it’s a person. It’s litter or an accident if it’s anything else. It’s all our obligation.
Also, if we SEE ANYONE ELSE hitting a critter with their car and they don’t stop right away, get their plate number, then honk at them and gesture at them to deal with their problem. If they don’t report them for flagrant littering.
Portions of the public might not accept their responsibility in this way, might not have broken out of their adolescence in this regard, unless effective enforcement is associated with it (and even then they might not accept it, it must be forced on them). This particular problem is just another example where physical goads must be used for portions of an unthinking public. Hence the cell-phone and cell-cam: use them well. They are the dog’s electric fence and metal-tag-detector security devices for the ignoramuses of our time.
Yeah, it’s not our fault. We didn’t do it. Ah, but those two aren’t identical. Are we responsible for what others do in our car? Technically, if you hit something, it’s an accident, I suspect. At any rate, an animal isn’t responsible for anything but living. We have to clean up after ourselves.
