This will be no revelation to you, I know, that squirrels have a hard time making up their minds under stress.
So when I round a bend at 40 miles and hour and meet one straddling the white line of indecision in the middle of the road, I no longer slam on the brakes or throw the steering wheel wildly left or right. There’s really no point.
It is certain that this ambivalent rodent, like all his kin I’ve encounter over the driving decades, is going to be of two minds, plagued with self-doubt and second-guessing himself a dozen times in the split-second it would take me to avoid squirrel pizza.
The animal’s ultimate decision more often leads to misses than to hits, so his odds are better than 50-50. So I’ll be darned if I’m going to end up in a ditch because the of the rodent’s fickle panic. I do always check the rear-view mirror to confirm a miss–unless the tell-tale thump of the wheel tells me sadly otherwise.
And asphalt is not the only situation where these creatures manifest a clear lack of cool-headedness.