Anyway, last week I was driving with the whole family in the car when a tree rat scampered out in front of the car. "Look out!" said my wife. "Bump-bump" said the car. The wife gave me a sick look, but I thought it was a great lesson for my daughter.
I've investigated too many accidents where somebody swerved to try to miss a squirrel or a raccoon or other animal in the roadway, and wound up losing control and crashing (sometimes they even got killed).
I had a terrible run of luck awhile back when my kids were small. It seemed like every week we ran over another squirrel. Then we had a week where I hit one EVERY DAY. My younger child was getting upset (my older child dubbed the minivan "The Deathmobile".)
We took the minivan to church and had the priest bless it with holy water.
It worked. No more dead squirrels. In fact, I haven't run over one since . . . even though we traded in the minivan. I guess the blessing transfers, like the Brown Scapular. < g >
I'll try to avoid them, but not by swerving. Everytime I've swerved a bit to avoid running some critter over they inevitably change direction at just the wrong time and get run over, anyway. If I see them in time I'll usually slow down and beep my horn a couple of times, which usually sends them scurying back off the road. Of course they probably end up getting run over a little later, anyway.