Thursday, September 14, 2006

The “Natural” Way To Stop Police Chases

When I wrote last week about using goats as speed deterrents, I completely overlooked using animals to end police chases. The ideas are so closely related that I guess it was bound to happen at some point. In Oregon earlier this week, it did. A female driver was trying to evade police when her car hit a deer in the middle of the road, thus ending the police chase. It is not known at this time if headlights were a factor.

Apparently, law enforcement officials in the great state of Oregon were inspired by the use of goats in Canada to deter speeders. Goats were too hard to round up in any considerable amount, but since deer was plentiful, they were enlisted. Because deer are “wild” animals, Oregon saves a lot of money since they do not have to put down deposits to farmers for the use of the farmers’ goats. This was the first attempt at using operation Bambi Block and officials are touting it as a great success.

“We don’t have a lot of police chases here in Oregon like all those crazies do down in California,” said an Oregon official. “It’s a good thing too, because although we have a lot of deer here, it’s not like we get to reuse them after they’ve been deployed to stop a police pursuit,” he added.

With goats being enlisted in Canada and California and deer getting the call in Oregon, I wonder what animal will be recruited next. Bison or buffalo would do the trick in Montana and coyotes could be used in Arizona. Bears would certainly deter motorists in the northwest, as would Moose in the northeast. They could use crocodiles in Florida. I would say Manatees, but they are busy stopping boats in Florida’s waters (which is very sad and before anyone posts nasty comments, I do not condone injuring Manatees, deer, goats or any other animal, except maybe gophers but unfortunately they aren’t big enough to stop a car).

I guess in the end, the recruitment of deer to stop police evaders is the perfect form of poetic justice. After all, it was man who left Bambi an orphan and it was man who kept burning Bambi’s forest. Now deer everywhere get to exact their revenge. Oh wait, you mean Bambi wasn’t real? It sure seemed real when I was a kid. Well then, never mind.

9 comments:

Michael C said...

Hey Odat,
Rats sound good (well, not for BBQ). I have heard about the rats in NYC before, so we'll use them to slow down speeders.

Yeah, PETA will come after me, but that's the problem with this blog stuff...NASA can come after me, the Girl Scouts can come after me, Star Trek fans can come after me(oh wait, I am one of those).
;-)

Sara's Varolo Village said...

In college, I was riding with my roomate and and a deer jumped out in the road and we hit the poor sucker. He took a great deal of the front end of the car with him though. The local police came and asked us if we wanted to take the deer home to eat.

Excuse me, could you please pass the road kill?

Sara :)
Code word "suxxjsf" - watch your mouth!

ShadowFalcon said...

I don't know what's more horrid, that people could possible eat an animal they ran over, or that its such a common practice there is a name for it.

Unknown said...

As a two time member of the NADHA, I can attest that hitting a deer at high speed will most assuredly shut down a vehicle.

NADHA?? National Automobile Deer Hunters Association. Way more fun than shooting the suckers.

Later Yall.

C... said...

Exact their revenge - in the most innocent and helpful way too.

In Georgia possum would not work because it appears people hit them all the time. Ground hogs however though nearly as small as possum are such a pain. They eat through phone wire and dig big holes. I think police ought to parachute large amounts of squirrels onto a fast moving car. They are so cute. No one really wants to it a squirrel.

mist1 said...

Was the woman charged with assault on an officer with a deadly weapon?

GaffLady said...

i've seen alot of dead rabbits on the road lately! maybe the east coast is really killing off the easter bunny to stop the chases.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

It's inhumane and positively sick to deliberately use animals in this way. People can be so creatively disgusting.

When I lived in TN, it was unusual to go out without seeing dead possums, porcupines, rabbits and deer as well as dogs and cats on the road. Even worse, nobody seemed to care.

When we stop caring about other creatures, we might as well be dead, too.

thethinker said...

What can we use down here in Texas!?