Frog-Slaying with Danzig
By Daniel Miessler on September 13th, 2006: Tagged as Morality | Music | Musings | Philosophy | Religion
The other night while driving back home I happened upon a stretch of country road that had dozens of frogs either hopping across or just sitting there.
I hit many of them, and it bothered me greatly. I swerved to avoid quite a few, but some were just so bent on suicide that they basically jumped right in front of me.
The irony was that I was listening to Danzig at full blast through all this. So I’m singing along to “satanic” music being pumped through the car at a deafening volume, yet I am getting upset because I’m inadvertently killing little frogs on the highway.
The real question at hand, though, is how most other people feel about killing frogs on the highway. Especially those who would judge me for listening to Danzig. I can’t help but think they wouldn’t care much.
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Clearly this was God’s way of punishing you for listening to Danzig.
Comment by Carl M — 9/13/2006 @ 10:18 am
Bah. If the frogs are too dumb to avoid a huge metal beast roaring at them at 60 mph, they’re too dumb to live. It’s Darwinism.
Besides, the legal and defensive thing to do when an animal (or group of animals) crosses your path is to just hit it… though if it’s a big animal that could cause an accident it’s good to slow down or even stop. Swerving is a big no-no under any circumstances, but there’s a big difference between “swerving” and “driving around an obstacle”.
That was actually something my instructor stressed when I had to take defensive driving class.
Instructor: (pointing at a squirrel running across the road in a paused video) What do we do about that squirrel? Rachel? Rachel: (moment of thought) Well I don’t want to say hit it… but it’s better than swerving to miss it. Instructor: Good girl, Rachel — that’s right. Hit it. Swerving can cause you to lose control of the vehicle or cause an accident.
We then discussed bigger animals, like dogs or deer. Basically it’s the same principle. If you try to swerve to miss a deer, chances are you’ll hit it anyway and you’re more likely to run off the road because your tires won’t be straight upon impact.
Once (in my old car) I hit a dog. A big dog. It was 11pm, and yes, the dog was very dead. No collar or anything, though. In any event, my instinct (to simply brake) was correct. When I composed myself and drove on, I noticed that I went over a bridge about 15 feet later. If I had swerved to miss the dog, there was a good chance I would have hit the railing or even run off the bridge completely.
Comment by Tim — 9/13/2006 @ 10:38 am
Speed bump, sorta suxs though, but I’ll feel bad while I’m eating hamburger for lunch.
Comment by Steve — 9/15/2006 @ 12:38 pm