Driver in our center ran over a Chihuahua yesterday that was running down a street into an intersection the driver was passing through. It was a T intersection where the driver was coming from the right side of the T, at the intersection a car was stopped facing the top of the T, as the driver passed through the T intersection, the dog came from the base of T, along the driver side door of the car that was stopped...straight across the T and under the back wheels of the UPS truck that was moving right to left of the T. Driver obviously never saw the dog as his view was obstructed by the other car. The dog wasn't on a leash at the time.
Management says he failed to honk his horn to alert the dog.
In terms of the treats comment in the title, this driver was a cover driver for the area. It's not yet clear if the dog was just a tire chaser, most likely, or a dog that owners let run loose to the regular driver to obtain treats. I mentioned in a previous post that I recently changed routes, today it happens that two dogs came bolting out of a garage straight towards the truck as I passed by a house to turn around in a cul-de-sac. I stopped two houses up from the cul-de-sac and the dogs were at my door, climbing in as the truck came to a stop. I could see they were friendly, not barking, but were very comfortable stepping in the vehicle. I told them in a firm voice to "get down", knowing this is what they most likely did with the previous driver. The owner comes up and says "The other driver always gave them treats when she comes down the street". I then explained to the owner that I'll be replacing the other driver and to please not let her dogs run loose as I don't carry treats for dogs and explained the reasoning why.
I know a lot of you don't care about my post, you love your animal friends, and will continue to feed them treats. The problem is when you're not there, conditions change, other drivers are effected by your decisions to feed the animals. All I'm saying is just be aware of possible scenarios in which you think you're doing a good thing, but can horribly backfire under the wrong conditions.
I won't even go into the implications if a dog was to have an allergy or just happen to die right after you fed it a treat it choked on.
