Birds are aware of speed limits on roads

[Still Waters]

Birds cannot read road signs, but they know that some roads have higher speed limits than others. They will take off further away from an approaching car on a faster road than on a slower road – regardless of the speed of the car.

http://www.newscient...ml#.UhUHHH_F8dU

[Leonardo]

Bird-brains, huh.

[brlesq1]

How cool.

[ineffectiveArtist]

Wonder what happens if they change the speed limit... Splat.

[Oppono Astos]

So presumably the birds run hit/killed by vehicles are victims of drivers who break the speed limit?

[Mantis914]

Bird-brains, huh.

I can tell you this though. Birds play this game of divebombing in front of cars for no apparent reason. I've seen it happen and had it happen to me where a bird will dive in front of a moving car like it was a game. Some times they make it, some times not but it seems they are having fun in doing it.

[sarah_444]

I can tell you this though. Birds play this game of divebombing in front of cars for no apparent reason. I've seen it happen and had it happen to me where a bird will dive in front of a moving car like it was a game. Some times they make it, some times not but it seems they are having fun in doing it.

I call them Suicide Birds.

This happened a while ago, but one evening I was driving near the lake and I had a Canada Goose fly up parallel to my car in the next lane. It flew at the same speed the car was going for a few seconds and then took off ahead of me! It was like some kind of really weird drag race. lol

[kapow53]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3351960/Crows-may-be-smarter-than-apes.html

[rodentraiser]

I think you can exclude grouse in this study. When I lived up in the hills, I drove up on the first grouse I'd ever seen while they were sitting in the middle of the road. I wasn't going that fast and I was used to birds taking off when my truck got within a yard or so of them, so imagine my surprise when I had to slam the brakes on when the grouse didn't so much as twitch a feather as they was about to be run over. All I could think of was: "And people have to hunt these things? Why don't they just run them over in cars?"

On the other hand, has anyone ever noticed that when you have to drive through a small town, particularly an upscale small town, you have to drive rather slow because the people act just like birds? They wait until you're just about even up with them on the sidewalk and then they jump out to cross the road in front of you, effectively causing an immediate and severe test of your brakes. No need to study them. It's pretty obvious at that point that they can't tell at what speed anyone is driving.

[Commander CMG]

I wonder how seagulls work out the dodgems at the funfairs in the holiday resorts?

[Shiloh17]

The road runner obviously didn't care what the speed limit was.