• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    You’ve activated my “thing”. No one seems to have noticed that the bottom of the ecosystem just fucking dropped out.

    When I was a child, dad taught me to always clean the windshield when we stopped for gas, and sometimes in between. I have not done this in years, easily more than a decade.

    We drive hundreds of miles of back country highway to pick up my kids. Talking the South here, mostly Alabama which is 77% wooded. Nada.

    Screw it, I could tell stories for an hour, too depressing to go on.

    • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      A part of it is how car aerodynamics have changed.

      My work car has a flatter windshield and gets a lot more bug splatter than my personal car.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        This is definitely true. I usually drive rentals and totally noticed how safer tilted windshields are.

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          While we’re at it, I have a bug/air deflector on the nose of my Subaru and I can report that it does indeed appear to work. My truck, conversely, is just a rolling brick and every bug in the county seems to wind up on its windshield. On the Scoob, they splat into the front bumper instead. Most of the ones above that presumably sail right over the roof, except the really big ones.

          Bug strike volume overall in my area has not diminished noticeably since my childhood (i.e. it’s still maddeningly incessant) but that sort of thing appears to be quite localized and I don’t have to go too many miles before I wind up in areas that are eerily free of bugs.

          In other news, my primary method of transportation is a motorcycle for much of the year and chiseling the little bastards off of your helmet daily – or multiple times per day – is just a fact of life.

    • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I drove from San Diego to Boston with my buddy a couple years back and it never even crossed our minds to wipe the windshields the entire trip