A Mechanical Engineer working with NASA Jet Propulsion Lab may be a scientist by profession but he is an animal lover at heart. Mark Rober is concerned about the number of animals killed by careless and unconcerned drivers. In order to check how many of car drivers went out of their way and killed helpless animals on road, Mark conducted a unique experiment.
He surmises that some drivers have a couldn't care less attitude and though they may notice small helpless animals on the road, they are not bothered about slowing down, swerving or stopping and letting the animal move out of range.
Rober says, "I read a long time ago that people will swerve more to hit turtles over snakes... as a firm believer in the scientific method, I decided to test this hypothesis." To prove this point, he placed rubber made animal specs of spiders, snakes and turtles along with a leaf on a certain section of the road and then crouched in the bushes to note motorist's reactions.
After studying the reactions of 1,000 drivers he found that 94% of all drivers did not do anything while 6% of drivers deliberately went over the rubber models. 3.2% went over the spider, 1.8% went over the snake while only 1% targeted the turtle. The only thing left untouched was the leaf. The most sympathy in these cases was shown to the turtle.
No comments:
Post a Comment