Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
Posted on 06/14/2006 8:30:20 AM PDT by nutmeg
GRANBY, Conn. -- A motorcyclist was killed Tuesday morning in an accident caused by a black bear who wandered onto Route 20, town police said.
Francis Osden, 56, of Barkhamsted, died in the crash, which happened just before 8 a.m. as a father and his two children were waiting at a nearby bus stop. Police said he was not wearing a helmet.
Authorities said a car traveling in front of Osden hit the bear, which ran off into the woods and was not found. Osden was trying to avoid that collision and crashed, police said. The driver of the car was not injured.
It was the second incident involving a bear on state roads Tuesday... SNIP
(Sorry, Hartford Courant articles must be excerpted)
(Excerpt) Read more at courant.com ...
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
The bear didn't cause the accident that killed the motorcyclist. Rather, it sounds like the motorcyclist was following the car too closely.
Yet another (non)survival-of-the-(non)fittest story.
Speaking for all Dakotans, I was surprised that there were any woods left east of the Ohio river.
There are more trees in new england now than there were in 1900 - much of the farmland has been abandoned, and reverted to forest.
...and coyotes
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16772052&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=341384&rfi=6
How is it the bear's fault the guy wasn't wearing a helmet?
Well, not to be too picky on a poor dead guy, but traveling too fast is what caused the crash...
I'm pretty sure I know what stretch of road he was on and that's a pretty steep grade to have to stop on.
Know Route 20 very well... not surprised.
Yeah, most likely. Also he was traveling east fairly early in the morning, and it was a very sunny day. Perhaps sun in the eyes was a contributing factor...
A grizzly accident.
Yeah, that thought crossed my mind... ;-)
Some days you get the bear.
Some days...
Wow... we have coyotes here too. Lots of car/motorcycle/animal collisions everywhere, I guess. It's wise to slow down, especially in known "animal sighting" areas...
I live in the middle of six acres of woods here in northern Connecticut. The one or so acre that the house stands on is landscaped, but the rest of our yard is "natural woods", complete with a stone wall built during Colonial times. All eight houses on our street have five + acres of property. My neighbor across the street has over nine acres.
We've seen black bears numerous times in our yard, along with wild turkeys, deer, fox, coyotes, owls, chipmunks and the usual squirrels and birds. We often hear the piercing screams of bobcats also - usually at night, and not too far from the house. The most amazing sighting of a black bear in our yard was in broad daylight last year... the bear was rolling around in the grass like a 250 lb kitten... LOL.
When touring New England for the first time several years ago, my husband's relatives from California were absolutely shocked to learn how much open farm land and forests are here and throughout New England. They expected to see houses "on top of each other", like what you see close to NYC...
I have to admit, I also have a rural west-coast perception that everything east of the Mississippi is paved, and I know that's not true.
That's true, too. Plus, it was a sunny morning, he was going east, and who knows how fast he was going. Wrong place, wrong time.
Personally, I'm no fan of motorcycles, but if I rode one, I'd wear a helmet...
Nutmeg, that's close to The Lost Acres Fire Department, I wonder if it was before or after. Pretty steep sections of road there.
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