Watch Out for the Animals on the Road

The ones walking as well as the ones driving

If you do a lot of driving, you’ve probably come across many crazy drivers. And you’ve probably asked yourself, “Why do so many people drive like animals?”

Well, I have news for you: some of those drivers may actually be animals. If you look closely, you may see floppy ears or a furry body behind the wheel of a car.

“Animal driving” is a growing problem around the world. Not only are humans driving like animals, animals are driving like themselves. This needs to stop. Please join me in urging all politicians to pass strict laws against any form of animal driving.

Any humans who drive like animals should have their licenses suspended for one year. Any animals who drive like themselves should be sent to New York City, where they’ll fit right in.

If you think I’m joking about animals driving, you probably haven’t heard about the bull who drove a motor scooter in Rishikesh, India. A video of the bull’s adventure recently went viral online. Let me give you a quick summary: A stray bull came across a scooter on the side of the road. The bull said to himself, “If I can ride this around, all the cows will want to date me.” The bull put its front legs on the scooter seat, pushed the scooter forward and rode the vehicle for about 20 meters or so, until it crashed into a wall. The bull casually walked away with a look that said, “Who did that? Not me. I’m just minding my business.”

The bull drives past a mustachioed truck.

It’s important to note that the bull is hardly the first animal to attempt to drive a vehicle. Back in 2017, a bear took a short joyride in a car in La Plata County, Colorado. The bear entered the car and put it in neutral, causing it to roll downhill and crash into a mailbox. Dan Bender, a spokesman for the local sheriff’s office, told the BBC that some bears in the area had figured out how to open car doors, but this was the "first time they attempted to drive off with the car.”

A couple of years after the Colorado bear attempted to drive a car, researchers in Virginia revealed that they had trained rats to drive small cars made of plastic containers. The rats needed to pull wires to control the cars and had learned to drive the cars to reach a Froot Loops treat. Last year, one of the researchers, Kelly Lambert of University of Richmond, shared more details about the research, including the fact that the rats seemed to be truly enjoying driving, like teenagers who just got their licenses.

“Unexpectedly, we found that the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the ‘lever engine’ before their vehicle hit the road,” Lambert wrote. (No, they were not just male rats.)

Photo by A n v e s h on Unsplash

We don’t have to worry about rats driving cars on our roads — they’re too small — but we do have to be concerned about large animals. The bull in Rishikesh is not going to be satisfied with a single joyride. Driving is addictive, and that’s no bull.

It doesn’t help that the latest technology is making cars simpler to drive. Self-driving cars may enable many animals to get around. But on the plus side, self-driving cars may alleviate a bigger problem: humans driving like animals.