?c?Well it appears to me that we have beaten this dead cow issue about to the end, but thought I should add a farmers perspective. We run a couple of hundred head of cattle in western Washington State, USA. This is not open range and here is how it works if you hit and kill one of my cows. If it can be shown that we have poor fences (legally defined) we pay for the damage to your car or motorcycle and bury the cow. If on the other hand, if vandals cut the fences (has happened) or say a tree fell on the fences and the cows got out, you pay for my cow ($800 to $1500 unless I get greedy and claim it was a prise winning cow).

Everywhere you go is going to have a whole new set of rules/customs and I hate getting scammed as much as the next but paying was the right thing to do if it was normal to have livestock wandering the roads. I think he got by cheap at $250.
:scooter:

Wow, that's a great second post road hog. How much time have you spent outside the USA? Sweet dreams, H.

Death to wandering cows!
 

Down with them all! Look at the trouble these damn cows are causing on this thread. They just don't care......

A small tip from someone familiar with the open range idea as practiced in Yorkshire, Wales and Scotland. In Europe you know you've entered the range because you cross a cattle grid. The biggest and worst danger then is the "mud" on the road. As a sidecarist my biggest problem is washing the corrosive "material" off afterwards, but i've seen bikers brought down by failing to allow for the "stuff" when it's wet. Getting sheep "by product" out of Goretex can't be easy when you are camping and your mates are unlikely to volunteer to help.


Andy

This is a great thread - let the buyer beware
 

The thread should run for a while yet; it is a good reflection of views from around the world.

It takes two to set the price: this seems to be a universal principle and it is even apparent in English contract law.

In the English courts, the farmer is nearly always culpable nowadays, no matter how animals get onto a highway.

To answer Hook's Question on how much I have been outside USA, not near enough, short trips only, Through Canada to Alaska last year, 1500 miles in Mexico (where we had to dodge the livestock), Three weeks in New Zealand (got to help a farmer run his sheep back in), Also been to China, Russia, Finland and Baltic states but not on two wheels.

Perhaps if we all became vegitarians it would put me out of the cow business and I would not need to stay home and feed the cows that are the problem when they wander out in the road. Maybe I could make a RTW run. But would still have the deer, elk, dogs, etc to dodge.

I find the post/threads here most imformative as I am planning to ship a bike to SA and ride for six weeks then store it somewhere returning the next winter (summer there) for some more and if I don't hit a cow (got to stay on topic) get shot, robbed or raped will eventually ride it back up through Mexico and home.
the Road Hog:scooter:

I've been thinking about this old thread while wheeling northward through Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, then south again as far as Helsinki......and what keeps coming up for me is.....

Where on the face of this planet do some posters live, work and play where there are not farm animals all over the roadways??? Most recently it's been reindeer, cows and sheep (the reindeer are most troublesome, because they travel in herds, are easily spooked, and tend to come in colors closely matched to rocks and polar mists), but elsewhere it's been goats and chickens, or dogs and cats. Or children and grandmothers.

I just had to get that out of my system.

Safe journeys!

Mark

It's Ethiopia
 

Try telling that to an Ethiopian, in Africa the term road has a very different meaning to what we perceive it to be. It is a meeting place, an artery that binds villages together, it is the life of the town and most importantly villagers perceive vehicles to be the intruders on the road because people and animals existed before automobiles. Simple as that, respect local customs, no matter how whacked out they appear to you :rolleyes2:

your dead right...

A 4 year old thread, I hope the cow is still dead !doh

In situations like this it is probably best to pull your handgun, fire a couple of shots in the air and back away slowly telling all the natives to stay calm

Hahaha i like it!!


The problem with this tread is that we really don't know what happent exactly.
So we are all saying what we "think" we would do, but you can't be
100% sure until it happens.

This is a bit extreme,but even here in Ecuador i hear at least once
a month that local people when caching a thief ,they set him on fire alive!!And they show it on the evening news!
Last month i saw how they made a hole in the wall of a police station and throwed a petrol bomb inside so the 2 thieves came running out with there heads on fire.....very very ugly .

Talk about different culture.
Now somebody who kills a cow is not a thief but big groups,locals and big crowds can easily heat up and give the blame to whoever
they like.

Would i pay?
It all depends on the situation!
Its a miracle that you can drive away after you killed a cow,
those thing are big!!

I probably just do like written above:

pull my handgun, fire a couple of shots in the air and back away slowly telling all the natives to stay calm!!

skinny cows
 

the cows in Ethiopia are quite skinny though... not as fat and big as cows in Europe or those corn fed ones in the USA... skinny cows are easier to mow down... :yes:

FWIW, I came across unfenced and untethered livestock in the road a number of times when I was travelling and I really couldn't understand the 'driver is always at fault' mentality. :thumbdown:

I can only say - if I depended on livestock for MY livelihood, I wouldn't bl00dy well want it wandering around at risk of getting hit doh - I'd want it safely tied up!! :clap:

With respect , it doesn't really matter whether you understand it or not .
What this thread is all about is First World perceptions and Third World realities .
Animals have to wander and graze over sparse vegetation and cannot be tied up , it's been that way for many thousands of years . Low incomes do not allow for expensive fencing either and land owning traditions are not the same as western europe or north america and probably don't permit fencing .
It's already been stated that roads are viewed in a completely different light in traditional areas and are not merely a means to travel .

The cattle aren't the problem - WE ARE as we travel at speed through somebody else's country .
The only answer is to slow down so that the animals are aware of you and can judge your speed , 99% of the time they will try to avoid you .

Cattle can be a huge investment for a small farmer in a third world country and to lose one is a tragedy not only because of the immediate loss but also because of the difficulty of replacement or the length of time for a replacement to grow from a calf . If the animal killed in the accident were incalf [pregnant],then the loss is even more serious .

:thumbup1:

For me, this sums it up very well:
"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable."
Clifton Fadiman in Bike Bits. The internet newsletter of the Adventure Cycling Association. (US)