My dad once told me that back in the 1930's he hit a domestic hog which had somehow strayed onto the road. The animal was so low slung and the center of gravity of his '30's model car was so high that the collision sent the car end over end, with my grandmother in the back seat. Since she lived until I was 21, in 1960, evidently she wasn't hurt too badly, but in those days before seat belts it's hard to imagine surviving such an accident.

Here in Tennessee, the real danger is hitting a deer and having it come through the windshield, sometimes with fatal effect for the driver and/or passanger(s). I was involved in three deer/automobile accidents this year, once as a spectator, once as a passanger, and once as a driver. There were no injuries (except to the deer), but the damage to the car in one of them amounted to $3500. In the case of the one in which I was the driver, I managed to swerve to the point that the deer was hit only a glancing blow, and the damage amounted to removal of the remotely controlled side view mirror.