Is this animal cruelty or no big deal?
You might be familiar with the trolley problem, a thought experiment on ethical dilemmas. In that, a man stands at a switch where he can send a runaway trolley either to one set of tracks where one person would be killed or to another set of tracks where several people would be killed. There are many debates about the correct course of action, but most people assume they’ll never face that kind of situation in their life.
Watch a Florida man run from the police, then tell them he wasn’t actually driving.
While not exactly like the trolley problem, a person driving their full-size pickup truck in Minnesota was faced with the proposition of saving the lives of several ducks which were huddled in the left lane on a highway. In the video taken by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, we see the digital sign above warns people of the situation: “Animal On Road Left Lane Closed.”
Other drivers who were traveling in the left lane managed to move over without difficulty. Traffic was fairly light, so avoiding the huddle of ducks was barely an inconvenience. We have to say had we been in the same situation we would’ve also moved over.
However, this truck driver decided to stay in the lane and drive right over the animals. While the area is blurred when that happens so we don’t perceive the gory details, we can see two of the ducks scamper away to the shoulder, so it’s pretty obvious the rest are either dead or seriously injured.
The question is, did this driver do something wrong? Some are calling his actions or lack thereof animal cruelty. We’re not sure if it rises to that height, even though we understand why people are saying that, but we certainly think it was senseless. After all, killing ducks to make a meal achieves an actual purpose. Driving over them just because you don’t want to move over one lane seems ridiculous at best.
Being longtime animal owners, we have a problem with people who think it’s no big deal to kill animals out of simple fun or what this was. Had it been a group of dogs or cats on the highway, we really wouldn’t see a difference, but we think the outrage would’ve been multiplied greatly. We can’t determine the motivation this driver had for not moving over, but we doubt he just didn’t notice the sign or the ducks, although there’s a remote possibility he was texting or recording a TikTok. Was he having a rough day and wanted the ducks to suffer too? Does he hate animals? Is he just sadistic? We have so many questions.
What do you think? Should he have moved over? Would you have moved over?
