Having been forced to play ‘Gators & Trucks twice, perhaps I might shed a bit of light on the behavior of the ‘pavement gator’ and how it joins the flattened fauna.
A 9’6” gator decided to dash across the road in front of my Range Rover, causing lots of noise, but only two mild bumps as the axles had sufficient travel to ride over the gator but not disturb the vehicle. However, the tie rod was bent somewhat. I once had a tee shirt with “Jeeps are just famous, Land Rovers are legendary” on it. Brer Gator ground truthed it.
Fast forward to last week or so ago, when a 9’3” gator also appeeared in front of my F350 diesel long wheel base truck. This time, the truck was instantly in the other lane of the two lane road and the truck jumped quite a bit when the axles passed over the gator. The Range Rover was vastly superior as a gator flattener.
In both cases, I had to stop, back up, and remove the gator because has a smaller vehicle hit it, the resulting accident could be serious.
In both cases, the gators were not visible at night due to their dark color on an asphalt road and their sudden movement onto teh road.
It is different than hitting a mule deer, in that there is little to no danger of the gator coming through the windshield. On the other hand, I can’t see a deer bouncing an 8,000 pound truck into another lane.
Watch out, they Are out to get you!
;-)
I think I have an explanation as to why your Range Rover went easily over the ‘gator, while the F-350 bounced.
The rover is designed to carry maybe 1000 lbs in relative comfort, nice cushy ride with off-road abilities.
The F-350 is designed to carry 2 1/2+ tons of load. The suspension is, shall we say, “just a tad” stiffer. Had your 350 been loaded, I doubt you would have had such a radical departure from your lane.