Why are birds so good at avoiding getting hit by cars?

Question

There will be times I’m on normal roads or even driving fast on a highway and have had very close encounters with birds flying aross the front of my car.

I never see dead birds on the road so I just assume they have some kind of special airflow mechanism that allowed them to avoid accidents.

In: 111

Answer 1

A lot of the time they’ll ping off the windscreen and onto the bank of the road/someone’s yard/down into a ditch.

Sometimes, bigger roadkill will be scootched onto the shoulder or embankment because of the way they’re hit. Birds are usually flying across roads, so their momentum will bounce them further to the side and away from the asphalt.