November 19, 2007: Bear vs. Truck
 

I got this one via e-mail with only the subject line of Bear vs. Truck. Really that is all you need to know after viewing the pictures.

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear01.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear02.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear03.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear04.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear05.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear06.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear07.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear08.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear09.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/cellar/bear/bear10.jpg




EDIT: UT can you change the date of this thread to today? Edit will not allow me to change my supbject line.



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Sigh, poor bear.
All the protection nature can give doesn't count against a truck.

Why is it if a deer hits a truck they screw it up real bad but when its a grizzly all that happens is the bonnet gets a lil screwed up

Two theories:

1.) A deer is light enough to get thrown up onto the hood and go through the windshield, whereas hitting a bear is more like hitting a tree.
2.) A deer's skin is thinner and not covered with thick fuzzy hair, so it pops like a balloon, and the blanket of guts makes the impact appear more gruesome than it really is.

They are not the same trucks!

I can't believe how little damage there is to the truck. There's not much exterior damage to the bear either. Was it a head-to-head contest?

Those claws give me the creeps (shudder). :worried: (Bears in general give me the creeps.) When I read John Gardner's Grendel I imagined the monster as a sort of humanized bear.

I thought seeing the damage to the vehicle would be interesting so I clicked the link to this thread, however that turned out to by highly anticlimactic.

Now I'm only horribly saddened by the sight of the bear. Don't know why seeing the blood oozing from the bear's head is affecting me so.

It doesn't even tell us how many steaks you get from a "grilled" bear of that size.

I was feeling REALLY bad for the bear.

Then I saw the front paws. Creepy. Yay truck!

:welcome:

Welcome Rusty!

Nice one Spud! Thats as much as I can bear.

I thought the paws were cute ... except for those giant claws! Whoah!

Nikolai, did you notice that big heavy crash bar on the truck? They're also highly effective against pedestrians. Also Clod's 2nd point holds - hit a deer and it comes over the bonnet and takes out the windscreen, hit a bear and you knock it to the ground. In Australia there is a similar situation with kangaroos which have no bloody road sense: they are often deflected off the 'roo bar and hit the windscreen. Some rural vehicles now sport 'roo bars that lean out at the top, designed to knock the 'roo downwards onto the road. SPLAT!

Hm, I think he's playing possum, maybe that blood ain't his own, maybe it belongs to the missing gas jockey.

Note the cartoon style tongue-protruding-from-side-of-mouth face the bear managed to pull before he croaked. At least he had a sense of irony!

:welcome:

Welcome Warren Peas. You're so obvious, I can read you like an open book!

The IotD sure does draw them in, doesn't it?

Thanks for the welcome Zen. Quite a set of mittson that bruin, reminds me of the joke about the dog, walked into a bar. Says" I'm lookin for the guy that shot my pa.

[quote=ZenGum;408838 They're also highly effective against pedestrians.[/QUOTE]

And Hugos and Volkswagens and Metros and Priuses and Miatas and motorcycles and ...

Thanks Zen, I was going to point that out. We live in deer country. The other thing to note about that truck is that the crash bar, we call them brush guards, is actually a physical part of a non-standard bumper welded to the bumper, obviously made of heavy guage steel. Most average trucks have a brush guard that attaches to the under body and frame of the truck, so when you hit a deer or in this case a bear, the brush guard would fold back on the truck and cause significantly more damage. The average brush guards in the US run the gamit of quality and strength. Your point about the weight of the animal is a good one.

Hi Merc:
Rather than weight I was thinking more in terms of bears having a lower center of gravity than deer, and also of deer tending (I guess) to leap when they panic. Hence they'd flip over the bonnet more easily. Although I guess a bear might rear up to fight - imagine seeing THAT through your windscreen!

Gotcha.. I agree completely.

This is what I always wanted to get for my pick-up truck but the thought of the added weight and the drag on my gas milage made me make a wiser decision.

http://www.roadarmor.com/ra3/ford_trucks.html

http://www.4wheelonline.com/images/C...RDARM_body.jpg

It's a magic truck that changes from blue to red.

The ironic thing about that "road armor" is that the stronger it is, the more likely you are to die in an accident, because you are eliminating the crumple zones that absorb all that kinetic energy. It's also irresponsible because you endanger the other vehicles on the road, taking away the crumple zones that would make an accident less dangerous for them. But hey, if you hit a pedestrian, your grill won't break. It's all worth it.

OK, seriously. Is it the lighting, or what? The truck, the same in every other way I can see, is blue in the first pics.

The red truck is the one that hit the bear. The blue one is the one that is hauling the carcass away.

I'm pretty sure they are different trucks, one for hitting the bear and one for hauling it.
The hauler is blue, has double back wheels, a spare tire on the roof, and side handles on the frame at the back. The hitter is red, and has single wheels and toolboxes on the flatbed at the back and is considerably newer.
Also the blue one has a huge dead bear on the back ;)

Let's play spot the differences!

Ahhh. I see. Them having the same bar contraption on the back threw me.

I'm with you. I feel for the bear.

Hey good points, I never considered the pedestrian angle, and it would be less likely that I would get any blood on my paint. I doubt your assertion that it would be more unsafe for me, in fact if I hit you with a tank because you pull out in front of me and you die, then you should think twice about pulling out in front of my tank. Big trucks hit small cars all the time. Not my problem. To bad for you. Thanks for your comments anyway.:rolleyes:

I've a strong suspicion that your tongue may be in your cheek for most of your post, but this part conflates two points.
You need crumple zones if you hit an object that is immovable or at least very much larger than yours - say, a semi trailer. Without them the deceleration is passed on to the passengers at full intensity. Mind you, driving something like what you posted here ... there aren't gonna be too many things that are immovable.

That crash bar is good for protecting the vehicle when it hits very large animals: moose, deer, bears. It may leave you (the human cargo) vulnerable in sudden-stop collisions. You'd want to weigh up the likelihood of each happening, allow for gas consumption, do the cost-benefit analysis, and make your decision. Unless very large animals are common where you frequently drive, I don't think it would be justified. Seems like you thunk this all through already though.
With what was shown here rollover would be a bigger worry for me. Or running over your kids in the driveway because you couldn't see them.

You are confusing mass with rigidity. Sure, the "armor" provides a few hundred pounds of mass, but that is insignificant compared to the weight of the entire truck. You could get the same addition of mass by throwing a few bags of sand in the bed. What the "armor" really does is add rigidity. It keeps the crumple zones from crumpling. Highway fatalities have come down steadily over the decades even while the number of cars on the road have increased. This is due in large part to crumple zones in vehicles. This "armor" defeats that.

:biggrinha:

The other thing that has happened on newer trucks is that they are droping the front suspension, which pisses me off because it really changes the way they look, but it does make it safer for other drivers. Not that I really care much about the other guy...

Doesn't the new model of one of the really big urban SUV soccer-mom-mobiles (maybe Ford Explorer??) have a special bar at the front to stop smaller cars from disappearing under it in collisions? Its a start.

Wouldn't be the Explorer, to small, might be the Expedition. They stopped making the Excursion, and it was as big if not bigger than the Suburban.

Many people commented on the "creepy claws". They're really just a very good digging tool for the bear. Bears eat small rodents and even insect living in the ground so the claws are used for digging in the dirt as opposed to scratching your eyes out or something more depraved. Bears are amazing animals. And - fun fact to know and tell - bears have the best sense of smell of any animal out there. Yeah, even better than a blood hound. Too bad we can't train them to do airport security!:)

That thar bar was struck by that thar truck with the bull bar, or maybe now its a bar bar. See thar what I did right thar?


BTW, anybody got a pot big enough for that thar bar???

Welcome to the Cellar Katie. :D
You're right about the claws being survival tools. They also use them to tear open rotten wood (logs), for the insects.

Hi Katie, welcome! (Am I allowed to welcome somebody if I have fewer than 1000 posts? :p ) You're right; bears are amazing animals. They can run faster, swim better, and climb better than we can. They can sniff out food better than anything else on earth. They are grouchy, territorial, and unpredictable (especially black bears).

I grew up with too many true stories of people camping or hiking in the pristine Ontario wilderness and ending up as a bear entree. Too often it was kids. I suppose if I'd grown up in the environs of mountain lions I'd feel the same about them. I'm just happy if bears stay far, far from me.:runaway:

I hope so, 'cause I'm guilty of it myself. Even if you don't know me, I've spent alot (maybe too much?) time here getting to know you guys. LOL SO - I feel like I can, so I have. And will again. Welcome, Katie! :)

Good point. Still creepy. -stepping far far away from bears; sleeping, eating, hit by ugly trucks, or otherwise.-

Howdy Katie, nice to meet ya :)

I must admit the pictures of the bear I found quite upsetting. Brought back unpleasant memories of a long dead dog.

And I thought they ate honey out of a honey pot!
http://www.lholmes.fsnet.co.uk/image...the%20pooh.jpg

WHOA, that's a LOT of bear!
No witty repartee for me... just the obvious.
kthxbai

Nooo... they eat honey out of a hunny pot...hunny.

Thanks everyone for welcoming me. This is such a nice site. The comments are funny and no one seems to be mean-spirited.

That's what I thought at first too.
You'll find the threads with the mean crap in them soon enough. They are a minority though.
Mostly this place is nice and sometimes very witty - check the Hall of Fame thread in the Cellar Meta forum for some classics.
Home Base, Nothingland and the Images forum are the friendliest places. Politics and current affairs (surprise surprise) can get snarky.

Zen....shhhhhhhhhhhh. Ix-nay on the eads-hay up-way.

Crap, now we have to kill Zen. :p

Just let me get to 1,000 posts first, ok?

My work here is done then. Disturbing everyone around me is my life dream.

Actually looking back at my last few pictures they have been of dead animals and vehicle crashes. Hmm, I guess I am just a morbid person.

Welcome Katie, tell us about yourself, and don't take your helmet off just yet.

What I want to know is how he got the bear on the back of the tuck.

A coat of armor works well.


Dang...the bear! Holy S*&T

Hurray! this must be the happiest day of my life. That ain't no bear. That actually was my mother in law dressed up in a bear suit. Thought this day would never come. Yay!

Morie
www.anthology.page.tl

I think that there is a lifting arm attached to the truck. You can see it in the first picture.

Also, state law requires all dead animals riding on the back of the truck to wear a seat belt.

Yea, there's a lift arm on the truck, but... I don't think they used it. There's no net or sling under the bear. How'd they do that? I suppose they could have rolled him to get it out, but why do that before they have to get him OFF the truck? Hmm...

Simple really.
The blue truck was driving along the road with the red truck following close behind. The bear was off to the river to eat salmon, and ran across the road between the two trucks, but didn't make it. It was hit by the red truck, and knocked forward, executing a perfect quintuple (and a quarter) somersault with pike, landing neatly in position on the back of the blue truck.

Poor bear, just out for a salmon from the riverbed, and ended up with a pike to a flatbed.

Why did the bear cross the road? Oh wait.. He didn't actually make it across.