Motorcycle Safety & Driveability: hit a dog, dog, animal

Question
My brother crashed tonight. A dog ran out in front of us and he hit and crashed. He went over the bars and messed up his elbow pretty good. So what do you do when a dog runs out in front of you? Go faster or what?

Answer
Depends on the situation.

In general, when dealing with any large animal (dog, deer, bear, moose) your best bet is to slow as much as possible and give yourself time and space to let the animal clear out and/or to give yourself time and space to decide on an escape route.

Swerving instead of slowing is not usually a good option because animals are so unpredictable, and because swerving (into the opposite lane or off the road) opens up a whole new set of consequences.

Dogs, however, love motorcycles, and tend to keep coming at you where other animals would just get out of the way...eventually. The MSF advice for dogs is to slow when you see the dog, then when the dog changes direction to account for you moving slower, accelerate. The theory is that the dog picks a trajectory to intercept your motorcycle (there's a whole book written about this: "How to Chase Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, and Little Kids; Picking Targets, Trajectories, and Interception Points" ha-ha) and it's generally a straight line. If you slow, the dog has to change trajectory for the new interception point. Once he does, if you get on the gas and accelerate away, the dog doesn't have the speed or agility to change trajectories again and he ends up behind you.

All this assumes you see the dog coming 3-5 seconds early. If he just pops out of nowhere, in the dark, there's not much you can do. Slow as best you can and try to stay in control of the bike. And anticipate having to deal with animals after dark. Riding when visiblity is low and animal activity is high is really a form of gambling, especially if you live in deer country.

Pat