If you had hit the elk in a vehicle that was tall enough to hit the body
and not the legs, the disparity in mass and elasticity of the two bodies
involved in the collision (vehicle and animal) would have resulted in
massive trauma to the animal, as well as a certain amount of damage to
the vehicle, but the animal would have been propelled down the road - so
it wouldn't have been like "hitting a boulder". The dangerous thing
about hitting an animal like this (elk, deer, moose, horse, cow, etc.)
is that they have a large, heavy body that is held high up off of the
ground on relatively slender legs, which usually results in the body
coming up over the hood and right through the windshield. The Roadster
is low enough that the bulk of the mass of the animal went up and over
the vehicle; also, because it is a convertible there is no roof
structure to stiffen the windshield, resisting the impact and channeling
the animal's body through the windshield into the passenger compartment.
Bad news for the windshield frame, though...
All things considered, you are very lucky to have come through this OK -
and lucky that there was no passenger in the car!
I was a front seat passenger in a Toyota RAV 4 that was hit by a
4-pointer buck on Hwy 1 on the outskirts of Ft Bragg, CA- I say "hit by"
rather than "hit", because the animal came out of some brush at the
right side of the road, trotted down the shoulder toward us and then
turned to its right and attempted to jump over us to get to the other
side of the road. The animal hit the along the top of the windshield,
mostly, with its hindquarters impacting the windshield directly in front
of me, but enough of the force of the impact was absorbed by the roof
that it didn't end up in my lap - thank goodness! It got up and ran off,
too - but probably suffered internal injuries that ensured that it
didn't live very long after the impact.
Gary McCormick
'70 2000 SRL311-13291
San Jose, CA
Richard Brown wrote:
><snip>
>
>I think the size of the roadster is what saved me. If I had hit that elk with
>a larger car I would have slammed into the body. That would be like hitting
>an 600lb boulder at 70mph. As it was I just took the legs out and it 'mostly'
>flew over the car.
>
>Thankful to still be here!
>Richard
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