In trying to save a cat, did a Florida man place the cat’s life above his and the lives of others?
“Florida man tries to rescue cat on turnpike causing fatal car crash” is the story of a failed cat rescue.
A visitor to PoC has said in a comment that a story of an attempted cat rescue in Florida, USA proves that cat lovers often believe that the lives of cats are more important than those of humans:
Just another person who believes that cats’ lives are more important than human lives….(SethJames)
Of course he is wrong. He is generalizing. In my experience, very rarely does a cat lover rate human lives less valuable than cat lives. There are some people who believe this, of course, but the vast majority of cat lovers are sensible and intelligent enough to rate the lives of both species equally. Am I correct?
In this Florida story Michael James Schneider pulled his car onto the shoulder of a turnpike (a toll road) to rescue a cat. The author of the article which is the source of this one states:
“…the demonic creature drew him into oncoming traffic. An unidentified woman hit Schneider with her car before losing control”.
The author appears to dislike cats! The man was thrown onto the side of the road while the woman died as her car crashed. The man was seriously injured. The cat? Nowhere to be seen and we don’t know what happened.
This story is not an example of a person placing the life of a cat above his or someone else’s. He just wanted to save the life of a cat and screwed up while trying to do it.
We don’t know the circumstances. Do turnpikes have hard shoulders? What I mean is, is there a lane at the edge of the freeway where a broken down car can park in an emergency?
If so then it is not foolhardy to try and rescue a cat on a turnpike. If Schneider stopped in one lane of the freeway on which there was free moving traffic, what he did was damn stupid. Under those circumstances he should have abandoned any idea of saving the cat because the risk was far too high.
This is a question of common sense not of one’s philosophical stance on the value if lives of various species of animal.
- Source: Florida Man Tries to Rescue Cat on Turnpike, Instead Causes Fatal Car Crash | Miami New Times
- Picture: Wikipedia Commons.
That’s nice to hear. This guy messed up as I said.
I’ve done the same but first put on my hazard lights before pulling over to the shoulder of the road,I would also give the oncoming traffic a heads up with a poster I keep in my car saying (Caution,helping an animal)and never had any problems!
Not an uncommon scenario.
I pulled over into the far left lane of an interstate highway one time, with my flashers on, to help a turtle get safely to the other side.
I had no problem. People in both lanes obliged.
I think that a lot of drivers are so consumed with their own lives and destinations that they don’t care about any animal, or even a person, getting in their way. We can see that in the multiple road kills.
I don’t consider this act as not valuing an animal over a human life. The humans were well warned, by my flashers and presence, that something was awry.
According to law, drivers have to comply with extreme caution when they see emergency flasher warnings.
I stopped on a road once to remove a dying squirrel. The cars behind me objected. They hooted me. Although they couldn’t tell what I was doing.