To kill a squirel or not to kill a squirel...

Well, you did the rigfht thing. The models can be pieced back together. I never drive with anything on the front seat now, i always put them in the foot well. Driving round here its like weaving through a minefield with all the animals crossing the road.

So sorry to hear what happened, but, I agree, you did the right thing. Glad there was not that much damage.

Like Bish mentioned, I usually will place the kits on the lowest level possible to avoid them from falling. Even if I place them in a box. 

That usually happens to me when I have a small load of groceries in the front seat.  I can almost tell now when a squirrel is about to go on a "suicide run".  Happened to me just day before yesterday.  I'm assuming that squirrels are suffering from some sort of mental stress from living in trees and eating nuts.  I know it would get to me!

Glad the damage was not too extensive.

Gary

Yep, agree that you did the right thing.  That’s good karma on you man.

We have no squirrels here, but like Bish I always use the footwell or forward part of the trunk to move models.  And I am really glad there are no deer or moose crossing Kamehameha or Kalanialaole (say that ten times fast!) Highway.

GAF

That usually happens to me when I have a small load of groceries in the front seat.  I can almost tell now when a squirrel is about to go on a "suicide run".  Happened to me just day before yesterday.  I'm assuming that squirrels are suffering from some sort of mental stress from living in trees and eating nuts.  I know it would get to me!

Glad the damage was not too extensive.

Gary

 

Must be an international thing. The Mrs had a squirrel run out in front of her today. She thinks it missed the wheels as there was no smudge left on the road.

She nearly took out a hare as well, must have been the day for close encounters.

 Real G....." THAT TEN TIMES FAST"

Glad ya didn't sqiush the errant little rodent, maybe he was late for work, ya know doing squirrel things.

   Atleast your near disaster was an act of nature. My best friend has a habit of dislodging landing gear from my aircraft when I ride with him. He claims muscle spasms....he's pushing 80....I think he just gets a kick out messing up my 48th and bigger planes.

 Glad you can repair the damage.

Kill the squirrel.

learning not to swerve is a basic driving skill. It takes practice.

Example: I was driving home from the airport last week at 3am going maybe 70. My wife asleep in the passenger seat.

A big raccoon jumps out. Wham.

oh he’s dead. Next day there’s evidence of $500 min damage to the car.

No models in the car, but what if I swerved and rolled the car?

Yup, I learned my lesson and the following transports were with the models on the floor. Much better. As for swerving, didn't even think of it, had no time to think of it.

GMorrison

Kill the squirrel.

learning not to swerve is a basic driving skill. It takes practice.

Example: I was driving home from the airport last week at 3am going maybe 70. My wife asleep in the passenger seat.

A big raccoon jumps out. Wham.

oh he’s dead. Next day there’s evidence of $500 min damage to the car.

No models in the car, but what if I swerved and rolled the car?

 

 

My dad drives a school bus, and in his driver training, he is taught to not swerve for anything smaller than a deer...obviously a school bus full of kids is more precious than a bunch of models, but still, that car, making evasive maneuvers to avoid a squirrel creates a much bigger danger.

GMorrison

learning not to swerve is a basic driving skill. It takes practice.

Never ever swerve for an animal,asking for trouble, plus it's just a tree rat.

well you did the right thing I live in the sticks down here where the internet is slow..and so are the gators but pythons crossing the road buzzard gotta eat.

castelnuovo

...was the question to which I had a fraction of a secon to answer. Opted not to kill the poor inocent bugger who just happened to run accross the street where I was driving with bunch of models on a board on the front seat as we were moving to a new house last week. It was late in the afternoon, not much trafic and I was driving slowly to minimize the bumps and road vibrations. I knew that moving models is not about moving them undamaged but moving them with the least ammount of damage. So the models slid from the passanger seat on the floor and looked like this

At first I was mortified and thought that the casualty count will be huge and a total loss of vehicles and equipment. To my big surprise, it wasn't that bad. The BT-7 was undamaged and so was the Kubelwagen. The Soviet truck (upper left) was badly damaged but very much repairable, an SAS jeep lost a machinegun and so did the Italian tank. A german officer lost his arm, but that is what you get when you always point your finger somewhere . The Land Rover also lost few small pieces and I was surprised to see that its rear view mirrors were intact. All in all, not bad and a happy live squirel.

The rest of the transport went quite well, minor or no dammage. And I am moving into a new and improved modeling cave which will take few weeks to set up as there are boxes everywhere.

Happy modeling...

Reminds me of a Farmers insurance commercial.....

Gators and pythons? Where in the world do you live Some kind of a swamp?

Growing up at the edge of the woods in Croatia we had worthogs, cayotes and an occassional wolf or a bear.

yes 10 min tops your in the everglades its nice in winter NOT in the hot months which is from apr-oct. there abouts.

I hit a deer back when while driving a sports car at 60 mph. Destroyed the car.

Maybe you should look at investing in stuff like this. Handy for storage, travelling, moving etc

These guys are ready to travel to Telford already! no damage or anything!

Those boxes look very good but I don't think it would be practical for moving 60 models

BTW, the cammo looks SUPER. Care to share how did you do it?

Take out the squirrel - Darwinism.  That squirrel self selected lol.  Besides, after they cleaned out my greenhouse I have no love for squirrels.

I’ll throw in my .02 here. I was taught driving an 18 wheeler you never swerve for ANY animal including deer. (My score is 11 1/2, by the way.)

The truck will probably have to be towed but that’s preferable to rolling it on top of a car.

You see an animal, ya take your foot off the throttle and sound the horn for the deer sized, a dog/cat and smaller are on their own. 

I remember the “swerve for nothing unless they can hire a lawyer” in driver’s ed.  But reality is very different from classroom lessons.

I almost hit a cat once, where the little stinker waited until I was almost upon him.  He dashed across the street, and what happened next was a little surreal.  I only remember slamming on the brakes while watching the cat disappear from my LOS below the hood line.  Then, as if watching someone else driving in slow motion, I saw my hands frantically working the steering wheel to effect a skid to attempt to alter the car’s path to keep the cat from getting crushed by the front left wheel.    It actually worked, and I saw the cat right next to my car from the side window as I passed him.  That little moron was bucking in excitement as he made it to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road.  He did the “all stop and rapid shoulder licks” that cats do when they get away with doing something really stupid.  That must have cost him 2-1/2 lives minimum.

This all happened in a flash, and thank God my hands knew what to do, as I sure didn’t.  To this day I cannot explain it.  Maybe my car knew how to drive.  But my car was a 1983 Accord, so no collision avoidance gizmos were on board.

Maybe driver’s ed should have a course where paper people and animals suddenly appear around blind corners to test the  kill/no kill reflexes of the student.  I’d totally fail that one.

I would flatten the squirrel.

A friend of mine's mom was killed when she swerved to miss a dog and hit a tree.

Lesson learned.

Instinct just takes over,for better or worse.

Sorry,couldnt help but think that the back seat floor looks like the aftermath of the Falaise Pocket.

Do not confuse driving safely with a poor attitude twords transporting "valubles".  If the models were really important to you, why chance moving such fragile items loosely on the front seat?  Too many? If you have 5 kids, do they all get a seat belt or only the ones that are convienent? I have shipped many fragile items all over the world, I took steps to package them as securly as I could every time.  Yes, some items get damged, but that is usually the case for many of our models whether transported from one room to another or shipped around the world.  The driver did the right thing, be as safe as possible, avoiding injury to anyone or any animal. With another move in the future, take a little more time and box up what you really want to be protected.  

castelnuovo

...was the question to which I had a fraction of a secon to answer. Opted not to kill the poor inocent bugger who just happened to run accross the street where I was driving with bunch of models on a board on the front seat as we were moving to a new house last week...

They're tree rats.  I don't go out of my way to kill a squirrel, but I'm not changing course to avoid one, either.

A couple years ago, one dashed out in the street in front of me and he got clipped.  I stopped at a stop sign at the end of the block, and I happened to see him in my rear view mirror.  I watched as two other squirrels approached the injured one, they sniffed, and then they proceeded to tear him apart.

I've seen them eat their own young, too.

And they can strip a garden of vegetables in the space of a morning.  They're worse than people say humans are, more wasteful.  I see them pluck a tomato, take a bite, then toss it away.  They bite the blossoms off flowering plants.

They gnaw through phone and other cables.  They get stuck in transformers and short them out.

Tree rats.

castelnuovo

Those boxes look very good but I don't think it would be practical for moving 60 models

BTW, the cammo looks SUPER. Care to share how did you do it?

 

All you need to know is in the build logs. invest heavily in masking tape!

Builds

Shinden

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/181765.aspx

KI-45 "Nick" build

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/180550.aspx

ZM have another Nick out and it is a short nose variant. I think I am going to try a different way to get the same effect in a much tighter pattern

the Baron

 

 

castelnuovo

...was the question to which I had a fraction of a secon to answer. Opted not to kill the poor inocent bugger who just happened to run accross the street where I was driving with bunch of models on a board on the front seat as we were moving to a new house last week...

 

 

 

They're tree rats.  I don't go out of my way to kill a squirrel, but I'm not changing course to avoid one, either.

A couple years ago, one dashed out in the street in front of me and he got clipped.  I stopped at a stop sign at the end of the block, and I happened to see him in my rear view mirror.  I watched as two other squirrels approached the injured one, they sniffed, and then they proceeded to tear him apart.

I've seen them eat their own young, too.

And they can strip a garden of vegetables in the space of a morning.  They're worse than people say humans are, more wasteful.  I see them pluck a tomato, take a bite, then toss it away.  They bite the blossoms off flowering plants.

They gnaw through phone and other cables.  They get stuck in transformers and short them out.

Tree rats.