Why do rabbits or other small mammals try to run in front of my car in the evening?

Hmm, I think it's the case of their eyesight being diminished by the vehicles' headlights.

At night, an animal's eyesight is usually far greater than ours. Just think about wearing night vision goggles in a dark room and suddenly someone switches the light back on. The sudden change in the surroundings disorientates you and you hurry to remove the hindrance.

So, I guess animals try to do the same thing. The lights disorientate the animals and causes them to search for some way to rid themselves of the problem.

Other times it could be an instinctual defense mechanism. Like squirrels do when a predator approaches them, they dart back and forth in different directions to confuse their predator and allows them to escape.

Unfortunately, that defensive strategy doesn't work against automobiles.

Herbivorous animals such as rabbits come to the side of the road because often the grass is greenest there because it gets more water from the road runoff. When a car comes they get scared and the lights also partially blind them and inhibit their vision because their eyes are not designed to accept light that bright. Their eyes are particularly effected because they are used to the darkness before the car and don't have time to adjust to the brigtness at all. The panicked and blinded animals may run out onto the road accidentally and can be hit. Generally it is best to do highway driving during the day if at all possible to avoid hurting the animals and your car.

I don't know the reason of it actually I am studying economics and if I was a psychology student I d be pleased to answer your question with using psychoanalysis .But as you guess it takes time to study pschology but I am reading sometimes Sigmund's books . IN my opinion there may be some reasons for rabbits doing this. First they may not know they get harm if they are hit by a car like a baby who doesnt know that it will be injured after falling from a high object.

Or a second probability they may have some suicide feelings like human .You know sometimes people wants to commit suicide when they get into trouble.

I hope my answer help .I tried to make this answer totally mine opinions so I didn't make any copy -paste .But you should search for it from internet.Take care. By the way I saw your question before that time I think this question was weird but I think now this question is normal and interesting .If you want to find an exact answer beside asking to yahoo answers you should search on your own.Bye

All creatures have the potential of being mesmerized by lights. That is when they line up at the side of the road to watch you coming. Some of them, who are most "in thrall" will move out into the road to "meet" you. The ones that try to suddenly dart away, are the ones whose fear has broken the hypnotic spell, and they try frantically to get away--sometimes in the wrong direction.

Fish follow this tendancy as well. It is why there are rules against fishing at night using any sort of light.

This is a tendancy of people too. Have you never seen those drivers who run right into the rear end of a parked car on the side of highways? These people have been hypnotized (slightly) from the headlights on the other side of the road, and the red taillights of the cars ahead of them. The brain has shut down enough that they think they should "follow" those lights off to the side as well, and end up running up the rear end of the parked vehicle. This happens most often when we are getting tired, and our reflexes aren't as much in evidence as they could be.

Rabbits Run

I would imagine most animals don't realize or know the dangers of a vehicle and they are seeing something that they are about to chase after or they panic when they hear the noise of the car but they don't see it and they just run right out in front of it, it isn't like they are trying to comit suicide or anything like that, people run out in front of vehicles alot of times as well without looking, there is no reason behind it with animals other than instinct to just run when they want to or feel like running, they aren't taught to look both directions before crossing the road

I'd hit the pothole. Years ago I ended up in the ditch swerving to miss a rabbit during a snow storm. My younger brother still tells the harrowing story, but fails to mention the fact that he screamed like a little girl during the whole thing.

In the desert areas...they run to the roads at sunset. It gets very cold, and the heat of the black top is inviting to small animals. In other areas, they are foraging for food and need to cross roads at times to get to what they want. Fear causes them to freeze in front of cars. Bright lights will cause them to not see well, and it disorients them. They are not dumb creatures trying to get killed, they are aware of the dangers of roads, humans and other predators. So, I believe most of the time dear and other small snimals stay away from them. But, if they are searching for food, water or shelter...or, perhaps running from a predator, they might need to cross a road. If you had several tons of metal bearing down on you... you might freeze too. Especially if the headlights were blinding you. Lastly, I have had two kitties hit by cars. One survived...and we never knew who hit her, or what exactly happened. The other was killed. The people who hit her had a friend come tell us that she had been hit. We figured out by the way she was talking that she knew who hit her and likely they were going too fast and PInky could not assess how fast they were going properly. She was used to crossing the streets, but if someone is speeding, the depth perception for how fast that vehicle is going could be compromised.

Those are my thoughts... hope they are helpful.

I would think that once they see this big hugh thing coming towards them blinding them with lights, the best thing to do is to run. The rabbit, deer, etc probably has no idea that you are going straight and you are not chasing it. It just wants to get to safety. Animals like those are probably used to being prey animals. So when they feel that their life is in danger, make a run for it.

So many irrelevant responses. So much speculation. Cats also run in front of humans. My cats constantly trips me up by running in front of me. I saw a cat run over because it waited until the cat was barreling down upon him when he jumped in front of it. It's not suicide. It's some kind of behavioral signal. I wish someone more academic would look into this.