Man tries to avoid gator, hits bus

[Glenn MC9]

I got home late last night and was doing some "online reading. This accident happened Friday night in the Savannah, GA. area.

Click on the link below for the story.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=220269

Glenn
Tallulah Falls, GA

[Damn Yankee]

When I was teaching my kids to drive we lived in deer country and one of their first lessons was to NEVER swerve to avoid animals. Stomp on the brakes, keep it in your lane and let um have it. And remember to duck if it's a moose or elk. This guy traded his life for maybe a few hundred dollars of chassis damage and the animal still died.

[TomC]

One of the things any truck/bus driver has to teach themselves is not to do any swerving to avoid hitting an animal. It is better to hit the animal, and maybe sustain some damage then to swerve and possibly roll it over, or in this case get in a head on collision.
Along those same lines-many truck/bus has been laid on its' side from the driver falling asleep, having the vehicle drift onto the shoulder, and the driver waking up jerking the wheel back causing it to lay over.  In our cases-I see no real reason to be trying to drive that many hard miles on one day.  If you feel tired, pull over-even onto the shoulder to wake yourself back up.  The best is to take a quick cat nap.  When driving truck, I was going west bound on I-10 east of Tucson going through Texas canyon and could barely keep my eyes open.  Pulled into the rest area and laid back over the dog house (engine hump on a cab over tractor).  I glanced at my watch since I thought it would be a long nap.  When I awoke, I was refreshed-ready to go-and it had been 12 minutes!  So a quick cat nap is better then any kind of accident.  Good Luck, TomC

[JackConrad]

    Unless it is a really big gator or you are in a very small car, running over a gator is not much more than running over a speed bump. I ran over a 4' gator with our Cessna 172 once when landing at Punta Gorda (FL) airport.         
    However, do not try to catch a big gator by parking on top of him.  I saw a small toyota pick up destroyed when the driver decided to park on top of a 12' gator to "catch" it.  The gator tail destroyed the side of the truck with his tail.
  Jack.