End-of-the week feel-good felid from Cycle World: a motorcyclist saves a kitten about to get flattened in a busy street. Kitten, eventually adopted and named Skidmark, is ineffably cute. And the whole thing was captured on a GoPro video affixed to the female rider’s helmet. Cycle World’s text is indented.
In a video self-effacingly titled “I sound stupid, but I saved a kitten”—a video that’s now gone viral enough that even GoPro took notice, calling the rider in question a “hero” and offering her a care package in appreciation of the deed—Reddit user Your_Brain_On_Pizza (seriously, I like everything about this woman) suddenly stops swearing at traffic and starts steering her bike toward a tiny, fuzzy lump in the middle of an intersection. After hopping off to wave cars away and scoop the petrified kitten up, she runs the little bundle over to a bystander before going back for her bike.
It’s an efficiently executed (if somewhat scary to watch) rescue of tawny cuteness, and in the two days since the incident, rider and kitten have fallen in love. Your_Brain_On_Pizza adopted the cat, had him cleared of ringworms, named him Skidmark (“Skids” for short), and posted the update below. In the sage words of Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer, “motorcyclists are kind of awesome.”
An eleven-second update on Skidmark in his Forever Home. There’s hope for humanity after all!
OMG why were the other cars not stopping!!
I mostly have saved turtles but the last one I tried to save got hit by a car just before I got to it. I was upset for days about it.
The other cars weren’t stopping because they didn’t see Kitteh till too late and by the time they realised kitteh was there, they were well past him. The motorcyclist was already stationary when she saw him. Which doesn’t detract from the credit to her for doing what she did.
People here quite often stop for ducks crossing the road, sometimes with ducklings in tow – but again, sometimes by the time one registers the presence of a duck crossing the road at waddle speed it’s too late to stop comfortably. That doesn’t mean hit them, it means pass in front of them. Ducks do show a certain amount of traffic awareness, they know where they want to cross the road and don’t usually walk into the path of an oncoming car.
cr
Because a cager’s life doesn’t depend – on a minute to minute basis – on their observation skills.
Sounds like a voice of experience.
Car broken down at junction of two motorways (EN_US freeway?) ; stuck in traffic for 4 hours behind jam. Not happy. I pulled in downstream, asked them what the problem was. That didn’t know (and we’re too scared to answer anyway). I elected the youngest in the car (50+ himself) and said “I will tow you to the hard shoulder” . No IF, or BUT or MAYBE. “And I NEED YOU to walk behind the convoy and force vehicles to give way to the casualty vehicle.
Drivers in cages do not observe. Statement of fact.
After 5 scary minutes, I got them to the hard shoulder.
I will be generous. I reckon that between 50k and 100k drivers (edit from “people”; the two classes are NOT contiguous) accelerated past those poor stranded people and did nothing. MAYBE I was the first person with a tow-rope in my boot. But I doubt it.
Most people don’t care.
Why didn’t they push their car to the hard shoulder? After sufficient traffic had piled up behind them to be going slow past them, there’s not a big risk in standing on the motorway.
The bits of motorways that worry me are where there’s no hard shoulder, so if your motor conks out you’ve got nowhere to go, you’re exposed to any wally whizzing up from behind who isn’t looking far enough ahead.
cr
(1) I didn’t enquire. An answer would not have changed the situation.
(2) The youngest person in the car was at least 50 ; lack of confidence in the ability to complete the push would have been a perfectly reasonable reason to not start. We are talking about several hundred metres, slightly uphill, with 3 passengers in the broken down car, and going across 3 lanes of rapidly accelerating traffic.
Three people in the car means three available to push. (I’ve push-started my car on numerous occasions myself by pushing it up to the best speed I can get, hopping in and letting out the clutch in second gear. Admittedly some cars start much easier that way than others).
But I agree uphill changes the picture. Circumstances alter cases, as the judge said.
cr
I assessed the situation and was already reaching for the tow rope. I don’t consider the driver’s and passenger’s actions to have been incorrect.
Excellent save! And she had all her protective riding gear on – brains and compassion all in one motorcyclist.
great name, Skidmark!
Very touching. I often move turtles off the road. I always place them on the side of the road they seem to be headed in, if practical, since otherwise, I fear, they might just turn and head back into traffic on following their destiny.
I remember reading a short piece in the NYer a while back about some soft-hearted British women moving a whole bunch of turtles across a busy road to help them on their annual migration to lay eggs. Turns out the turtles weren’t ready and headed back across the road, many getting squashed. Very sad.
Darn, that’s crazy. She could have been hit by a car herself, and that’s against Rule One of Rescue: Never get into danger yourself if you can avoid it.
Still, at least no one was hurt, and it was a brave move. Plus, I gotta admit I’m a sucker for the second cute video.
There’s a third video under that one.
Yes, a “3d video” referring to a red car with a driver who hasn’t contacted. Was the kitten dropped or thrown out in the intersection?
No, I thought the one with the drive lady on a sofa with the kitty was the 3rd. Anyway she basically says thanks to all the many favorable emails of support.
Yes, that is my impression. I watch the internet on my big TV and I can just make the kitty out after the red car goes by.
Interestingly, a bigger truck goes over it and moves it forward about two meters.
In 2010 a woman who stopped in the left lane for ducks crossing a freeway near Montréal caused the deaths of two motorcyclists who ran into her car. She was convicted of two counts of criminal negligence and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death. While the maximum penalty could have been life in prison, she served 90 days on weekends and got a 10 year driving suspension plus community service.
Acts of compassion for animals that injure humans are not ignored in the courts. I don’t know if their using the Napoleonic Code as the basis of their laws made any difference in this case.
Much as I love animals, and try to avoid hurting them on the roads, I was taught never to make a sudden or unexpected manoeuvre to avoid hitting animals on the road, because of the possible unforeseen consequences such as those you describe.
Depends. Most of the animals I see are on gravel roads at night. I always avoid hedgehogs (which are slow and predictable). I think I hit one just once. Rabbits I usually avoid. Possums (that’s Australian possums, not US ones) tend to run unpredictably, I don’t run over them on purpose but I’m not going to go sliding off into the scenery because one of them has run erratically into my path. Ditto sheep.
I would always swerve to avoid horses, cows and pigs, though, for obvious reasons.
cr
How about kangaroos, their a challenge.
I believe so, but I’m in NZ. Not even the kangaroos’ legendary hopping ability has sufficed to let them reach us. How the possums got here I don’t know. Same way as the Indian mynahs, probably.
By the way, I always try to run over Indian mynah birds, as a game, secure in the knowledge they will casually stroll to the edge of the road just in time to avoid my wheels. They are the most traffic-savvy creatures ever. They never get run over.
cr
Freeways are different, this is an intersection, where everyone could see.
And yet the majority of accidents occur in intersections.
The classic set up for an accident is when the first vehicle stops unexpectedly and the following (distracted and/or tailgating) driver swerves abruptly to avoid them. The third car (following closely behind) will not always avoid the collision. Motorcycles are often invisible to car drivers, which is why they make those fluorescent fashion statements.
One they never mentioned in Driving School is when a large vehicle in an adjacent lane up ahead doesn’t start moving into the intersection when the light turns green and you are about to pass it. At least twice now, pedestrians, who have been caught halfway across by the light, have come running out from behind the truck and in front of me. Now I’ll slow down until I can see in front of the truck or bus.
Why do people glare at you when you come to a screeching halt just in time to avoid hitting them?
Wonderful!
That made my day. Good job Your_Brain_On_Pizza!
Look at the paws on that little guy. Gonna be a rug-monster.
Your sofa is history, pizza brain.
When I saw this a few days ago, I tried to see where the cat came from. I was worried that I would see someone throw it from a car. Bracing myself for the worst I think I found the answer. At around 12-14 second mark, the kitten suddenly appears underneath a red car that has a white oval on the side. I think Skidmark fell from wherever it was hiding underneath that car.
I try to remember to look around my car before I set off. If is cool out, maybe even rapping my knuckles on the hood for good measure. I’ve heard cats can climb up in the engine compartment for warmth. It looks like that’s what happened here.
Agreed.
Awww.
Clarification – “suddenly stops swearing at traffic” is incorrect. She was swearing at the traffic lights.
I often do the same, when (due to incompetence of the programmers) traffic lights leave me sitting forever on a red light while it shows greens to empty roads.
So there’s one more thing to like about this woman 🙂
cr
Outstanding work…and kept the cat too.
Here’s a good place to tell my recent kitty rescue story. I was driving a log truck across a four and half mile long bridge-tunnel at dusk and was startled by a small kitten in the emergency lane. As I passed at high speed she scurried under a drain hole on the concrete railing of the bridge. Calling the local Dept. of Transportation proved fruitless. They wouldn’t send out tunnel safety personnel to retrieve the kitty.
After exchanging my log truck for a pick up it took me forty minutes to return to the same numbered lamp post on the bridge. When I reached the lamp post I saw her again and pulled over. As I walked towards her, she ran back into a small drain hole. After struggling to reach her from the bridge side, I could see that she was backed to the bridge edge and hanging over the water. With high speed traffic rushing by, and preparing to be bitten, I leaned over the concrete bridge railing and grabbed her back leg and dragged her out. For one anxious split second she was dangling over the river but a moment later she was cradled safely in my arms.
Of course, at the tail end of this mini saga tunnel personnel drives up behind me and provides some extra measure of safety beyond my flashing hazard lights.
The little tyke was ravenously hungry and turned out to be the most affectionate kitten I have ever raised. I only kept her for a month before I found a suitable forever home for her.
Top marks for presence of mind in getting the lamp post number!
And also for rescuing kitteh, of course.
cr
My hero🐱🐾🐾
Me too. Once a few years ago my wife and I were walking around downtown Manhattan at night and heard a kitten crying. After about a fifteen minute search, we found it hiding under some construction equipment. It was in a location where we couldn’t reach it and it was too scared to come out. After trying for a while, my wife stayed with it while I ran home to get some cat food. We lured it out with the food and caught it. It was late so we kept it for the night, gave it a bath (it was filthy), and fed it more. It peed on my wife and then fell fast asleep. We brought it to an animal shelter the next day (would’ve kept it, but our other two cats did not agree with that plan, and we have a small NYC apartment). I had named it Howler Monkey (it had quite a voice for such a little one – which saved its life), but the guy at the shelter didn’t think that name would help it get adopted, so he renamed it Marlon. It was adopted within a week.
I don’t understand how there are people who do not love cats!
Good for you! You get a gold star from Profeessor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus).
Cool
I once was in a car where we stopped to admire some deer off to the side. I got out and was taking photos, when one of the deer casually walked into the road and was immediately killed by a car. There was very little traffic, but a corner and bad timing. Very sad day.
When I lived in MN, one day I was driving along a country road, and there was a large alligator snapping turtle in the other lane. So I pulled over, ran over to it – the shell was about a foot long, maybe a little longer, big turtle – and picked it up. You have to be careful with those because they’ve got wicked beaks and they’ll snap their head backwards over their shell to try and nail you (long bendy necks). Anyhow, it had leaches all over it, and as I was carrying it to the ditch on the other side of the road, as it tried to scrape my fingers off with its hind feet claws, it peed all over me, and it smelled *TERRIBLE*! And I had to get back in the car with turtle urine all over me. No good deed goes unpunished…
Since people are talking about turtles ‘n’ stuff…
Yuckers😖
Poor baby. I’m so glad she saw him, and gave him a home to boot.
Good for her; heartwarming.
With so many animals killed on roads, has there been any study showing that any animals have evolved behaviors to reduce the chance of injury/death from motor vehicles?
I answer my own question.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/35671/title/Evolution-Takes-a-Road-Trip/
Makes the world feel just that little bit better.
Sorry. I’m highly allergic and not a fan. Google an image of “Free Cat” to illustrate my attitude to stories like this.
And how many song birds did this Good Samaritan just sentence to death?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/science/21birds.html?_r=0
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/29/cats-wild-birds-mammals-study/1873871/
Aren’t you being a bit presumptuous on whether the cat will live outdoors? We know cats are problematic for songbirds and other small animals. Prudent people will take steps to limit negative impacts on biodiversity, but the lives of all carnivores depend on death.
If you saw me laying on a lonely rural road, and knowing I would likely consume a hamburger for lunch, would you run over me?
On that argument I shouldn’t swerve to avoid running over hedgehogs because, you know, snails have a right to live too.
From my POV, birds sit in my tree and crap all over my car parked underneath. Cats don’t. Hedgehogs don’t. Why should the life of a bird be specially favoured over that of a cat?
(That said, I would rescue a bird in similar circumstances).
cr