Last night, I was listening to CBC radio and heard an interview with a woman who initially had trouble filing an insurance claim for damage to her car. When she called an insurance adjuster to report that the windshield and side mirror of her car had been destroyed when she hit an animal, the adjuster asked her what animal she had hit. She reported that a fish had caused the damage. When the accident first occurred, she thought a rock had hit her car, but when she and her husband surveyed the damage, it was clear that it had been caused by hitting a fish. There were imprints of scales in the windshield and remains of a fish on the wipers and other parts of the car.

Hitting a fish with a car is a rare occurrence, and the adjuster at first told the woman that her claim could not be honored. The adjuster said that the wildlife collision claim was for cases when cars hit deer, elk, or moose. There was a provision in the insurance to cover striking a bear, but no mention of hitting a fish. However, when the woman consulted her local insurance agent, the agent was able to speak to a supervisor, and the insurance company is going to cover the car repairs.

After news of the incident got out, she learned from a neighbor who had once found the remains of a fish in the rain gutter of his home. The neighbor had previously seen an osprey drop a fish and was sure that a similar incident had occurred to get the fish to his roof. Ospreys are known to catch fish that are large enough that they make it difficult for the birds to fly. Occasionally, they will release the fish and go back for a smaller meal. However, ospreys migrate, and there were no ospreys in the area at the time the fish hit the windshield.

The current theory is that an eagle must have been the one that dropped the fish. There are numerous bald eagles in the area, and eagles are good at catching fish. Whatever dropped the fish, there were no injuries except to the fish itself. The insurance company paid the claim, the woman got a new windshield and mirror, and she has a great story to tell for years to come.

Have others experienced falling fish while driving? I have watched eagles fishing in the bay while riding my bike. Once I saw a bald eagle with a fish in its talons fly overhead to a nest high in a Douglas fir tree. It never occurred to me that an eagle might drop a fish. Eagles fly high enough that a dropped fish might reach terminal velocity by the time it hits a car or a bicycle. I wear a helmet when I ride my bike, but I don’t know if I could take a fish to the head without crashing.

I have no plans to change my bike riding patterns, however. I’m not really afraid of being hit by a falling fish. Other dangers cause me more alarm. When I ride my bike to the farm, one of the roads I take is a two-lane road with a 50 mph speed limit. The road has a 3-foot bike lane and signs warning drivers of the presence of bikes. I have a rear-view mirror on the left side of my bike, so I can see cars and trucks approaching behind me. You might think that the scariest vehicles would be the big semi trucks. Yesterday, multiple dump trucks with dump trailers were hauling dirt from a construction site. However, they were no problem for me riding my bike. I could see the drivers pulling into the other lane to pass me, and I could hear their tires on the rumble strips in the road as they did so. The vehicle that really gave me a scare was a pickup truck pulling a dump trailer. I heard tires on the rumble strips and assumed that it was crossing into the oncoming lane to pass me. However, the rumble was the trailer tires crossing into the bike lane. It missed me by what seemed to be only a foot or so. As it went down the road, I noticed that the trailer was from a rental company and that it was wider than the pickup that was pulling it. Glad it had missed me, I rode right on the outside line of the bike lane for the rest of my trip.

Rental trailers aren’t the only vehicles whose drivers don’t seem to know how big they are. The worst offenders are large RVs. Recreational Vehicles do not require a commercial driver’s license in Washington, regardless of their size. A 40-foot three-axle trailer pulled by a semi-tractor is a recreational vehicle. A converted commercial bus is a recreational vehicle. And some of those vehicles are driven by drivers who don’t seem up to the task of managing such a large vehicle safely.

The driving lanes on the road where I was riding my bike are 12 feet wide. I suspect that the trailer that crossed into the bike lane was 8 feet wide, about the same width as the mirrors on the pickup pulling it. That means there is room for two feet on each side of the trailer when it is pulled down the road. I’m aware of how it works because our camp trailer is 8’ wide and I pull it on that road. It takes awareness and skill because some bridges on other roads in our county have 11-foot lanes. A driver has to be precise to stay in the correct lane. Driving directly into the sun or a bit of fog can result in an even bigger challenge. Vehicles, however, have brakes. One option when approaching a narrow spot, or a bicycle in the bike lane, is to slow down. That option often isn’t the one chosen by many drivers.

I hope that they don’t get a fish falling on their windshield. Some of these drivers probably would lose control and wander out of their lane if that happened.