This morning on my way to work. (Rural Ohio here.)
I’ll tell ya a better story. Years ago, my band at the time were on the road, heading to a show around Elkins, West Virginia. We were somewhere in the vicinity of St. Clairsville, OH, when at like 70mph, a giant locust flies in my drummer’s window. We thought it was a hummingbird at first, but the thing is panic-flying around, hitting us in the face, etc. I’m still amazed we didn’t wreck.
I’ve been wondering the same. It’s been years. I live in western Europe. Could be an example of evolution, insects that fly higher survive more often, or climate change, there’s fewer insects about.
It used to be a big issue, now the biggest issue is bird poop and lice excretions.
Yeah, im always covered in lice shit too 😥
Daily
Maybe this question should also request the responder’s general location, because I imagine the situations vary substantially.
I’ve lived in California for most of my life, and we go on frequent drives between LA and SF, usually a few times a year.
In the 80’s and 90’s bugs would cover the front of our vehicles and the windshield would be difficult to see through even with wipers and washer fluid. We’d actually have to stop to manually scrape them off.
In the 00’s and 10’s we noticed that we’d get basically zero bugs on a long drive, and that sparked many conversations about California environmental law.
I just got back from a drive up the coast and I can happily say that we’re back to insane numbers of bug strikes on the highway. Just north of Ventura I drove through a cloud of large bugs that hit like rocks and instantly covered almost my entire windshield. This situation has been noticably turning around since COVID, which I think is a good thing
80’s and 90’s
'80s and '90s
00’s and 10’s
'00s and '10s
What’s with the downvotes? Corsicanpuppy is right, that’s how you abbreviate decades.
The apostrophe denotes the removed 19 and 20, as in 1980s => '80s and 2000s => '00s.
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.
Took the words out of my mouth. I used to plan for a car wash after every trip through the countryside. Haven’t done that going on 15 years now. Amazing how few people notice.
I’ve definitely noticed. When I was a kid in the South, lovebug season was a whole thing. I got drafted to wash the car constantly. Last time I was down there during lovebug season driving around, I didn’t see a single one. No splats, no scraping bugs out of the grill, nothing. No fireflies either. It is depressing. I’m a city girl now, but I still keep a densely planted organic flower garden. Even with huge patches of native flowers, I see very few pollinators, and it really bums me out. But I do often see bees sleeping in my flowers, so there’s that.
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
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.
This is definitely true. I usually drive rentals and totally noticed how safer tilted windshields are.
sadly, global warming is killing them. I remember years ago they’d splatter my windshield every commute
Light pollution is also a big one. Impacts migration, reproduction and predation.
Almost every day. Rural living.
I mean i live in a rural area (The whole state has less people than the city i grew up in, and my town has <2k people) and the bug splatter is way less than growing up in a top 10 US city as a kid in the 80s-90s.
Nothing like it use to be though
Yeah, I was going to say - when was the last time this didn’t happen?
I have some roads which would be swarming with bugs at certain times of day barely have any now. A lot of the country roads by fields just don’t have the insect populations they used to around, I assume due to the massive amount of insecticides they use.
Last week.
But cars tend to have more of a slant to the windows then they used to, so less bugs smack and splatter.
I’m driving the same car since 2006. It’s gone way down.
Well a car from 2006 isn’t going to stay pristine forever so it’s no surprise it’s gone down over the past 20 years.
That makes no sense.
The aerodynamics haven’t changed.
