I leave for work later now than I did for many years - I now leave the house at 3:30 AM for work. It is very dark of course.
Sunday morning - about 2 miles south of my home, I was traveling a state hi-way, good, dry conditions, probably right at the limit - 55 MPH.
Just a couple of hundred feet ahead, I caught a little movement on the right of the road. The movement and the size made it clear this was not a 150 pound deer, but something much larger. My first thought was, OMG, a horse and rider out here on the road.I began to remove my foot from the accelerator and move left [no oncoming traffic at that time of morning]. I had little time - as my headlights only picked up the movement when I was already very close. As I began to ease into the center of the road, I see a pitch-black bull ambling right down the center line at me, I had to move back right in a hurry, and hit the crease between the bull on my left and what actually turned out to be two mostly black cows with a couple white patches on my right. I don't know how I missed them. I am a professional driver - that actually might have come into play. There must of only been a few inches between us as I went thru at still nearly 55 MPH.
My heart was in my throat. I shook all the way to work, and thought about it all day long. On the way to work I called 911 and hopefully they got the cows off the road before a tragedy - which I almost was!
You know those accidents that kill people? The ones you think will never happen to you? It almost happened to me. If I had hit that 2000 pound bull I would likely be laying on the embalming table now. That scared the shit out of me.
If I had been on my cell phone, or trying to change the stations on the radio, or just looking elsewhere for a blink of time - I would have been dead. Killed by hitting a cow/bull without ever seeing it. God, I still tremble just typing this.
Jeff