Ultra Sonic animal devices

[Adamsy]

On Friday i hit an animal at highway speeds and it made the mother of all thuds and i thought to myself oh well that’s rooted that bumper/spoiler and i then waited for the noise of plastic dragging on the road but it never came so i continued home where under the lights of the driveway i cautiously made my way to the front bumper to find the entire thing fully intact not so much as a bit of blood or fur on the car, no cracks, splits or broken mounts, so the poor animal must of just been small enough to roll under the car, but far out it made a thud! So my question is does anybody have any of those little black ultrasonic devices on your car and do people think they actually work or just a waste of money? the ones i looked at today was called "hopper stopper" and were $29 but I’m sure I’ve seen others for like $7 so yeah what’s your thoughts on them , worth getting or a waste of time?

[DJKOR]

This was my take on such devices (aimed for Kangaroo's, but the same concept really) which I still think:

LED and HID and Kangaroos

Now for the electronic or passive wildlife deterrents like the Shoo Roo (Roo Shoo?) they work in concept, but every situation varies and it can not be a guarantee that it will work. Like you can get one and hope that it does it's job (and maybe it will) and if you never hit a roo, you may then think that it was the device. But was it really that, or did you just have good luck? Like it may be effective at slow speed, but at a higher speed, you can never guarantee that the roo is going to be deterred quick enough and in the right direction. You never know, it may even get shocked and actually jump into the path of the car when it was never going to in the first place. I personally wouldn't go with one unless you have money to spend to experiment.

[Wulfkind]

I've used them on a few occasions.. I have no evidence that they work except to say on 4 trips from sydney to noosa at night, I've never once seen a roo but I have hit a few rabbits just across the border... I don't believe they actually work, but 'eh, for $7 it wasn't a big expense to try.

[SuperDave]

The only way to know if the Kangaroo even hears the sound is to firstly know what sound frequencies a kangaroo can hear, then find out what frequencies the device emits. This then doesn't take into account the Doppler effect as the vehicle speed changes; faster you go the higher the frequency, but the difference between 0 km/h and 110 km/h won't make much difference anyway, but depends on the frequency to start with. Then is it a frequency the kangaroo will actually react to or just stand there and continue to eat roadside grass?

Just keep an eye out for wombats and eagles; you don't want to hit either of them!

[DJKOR]

Just keep an eye out for wombats and eagles; you don't want to hit either of them!

Yeah, had to avoid a wombat on a trip a couple of months ago. I was really thanking my good tires and brakes after that. I hear hitting them can be worse than a roo.

[Foss]

Matt, I put them on my Lancer a few years ago when I used to make regular trips between Spreyton and Squeaking Point (for the uninitiated, that trip is mostly back roads - bush and ag land most of the way), after hitting a roo. After I put them on, I never hit another one, but I can't say for sure whether its coz of the whistlers or if the roos just didn't feel like hopping out in front of my car. And for $7, I highly doubt any hardcore scientific research and testing went into the design of the product.

This then doesn't take into account the Doppler effect as the vehicle speed changes; faster you go the higher the frequency, but the difference between 0 km/h and 110 km/h won't make much difference anyway, but depends on the frequency to start with.

If I recall rightly, the ones I had said on the packet that they only worked from something like 80kmph to somewhere above the top limit.

Just keep an eye out for wombats and eagles; you don't want to hit either of them!

Yeah, had to avoid a wombat on a trip a couple of months ago. I was really thanking my good tires and brakes after that. I hear hitting them can be worse than a roo.

You bet your a*se their worse than a roo! I hit a wombat once in my Lancer. Got a quote for repairs. Plastic weld bumper, new front spoiler, respray, color blend, > $1000, thanks for coming.

[avstral]

I don't really believe in such things. as shoo roo. I did hit wombat two times, not a big deal, only few scratches (in bush fire area, animals go crazy in that places). No experience with eagles so far. But large dead(!) roo send me to panel beaters for almost 2 weeks( speed was more then 100). Good HIDs are best option.

Edited February 14, 2010 by avstral

[MT]

Matt, I put them on my Lancer a few years ago when I used to make regular trips between Spreyton and Squeaking Point (for the uninitiated, that trip is mostly back roads - bush and ag land most of the way), after hitting a roo. After I put them on, I never hit another one, but I can't say for sure whether its coz of the whistlers or if the roos just didn't feel like hopping out in front of my car. And for $7, I highly doubt any hardcore scientific research and testing went into the design of the product.

This then doesn't take into account the Doppler effect as the vehicle speed changes; faster you go the higher the frequency, but the difference between 0 km/h and 110 km/h won't make much difference anyway, but depends on the frequency to start with.

If I recall rightly, the ones I had said on the packet that they only worked from something like 80kmph to somewhere above the top limit.

Just keep an eye out for wombats and eagles; you don't want to hit either of them!

Yeah, had to avoid a wombat on a trip a couple of months ago. I was really thanking my good tires and brakes after that. I hear hitting them can be worse than a roo.

You bet your a*se their worse than a roo! I hit a wombat once in my Lancer. Got a quote for repairs. Plastic weld bumper, new front spoiler, respray, color blend, > $1000, thanks for coming.

That's a bargain, last car I saw hit a wombat ripped the strut from the strut tower.

Dont bother with them, mainly cos they make the most annoying sound ever when they drive past you when you are walking.

[boxerboy]

Same thing...for deer in NA.

Deer whistle.

I think these are generally considered as "snake oil". Keep your money in YOUR wallet. That's the trick.

[peregrine]

On Friday i hit an animal at highway speeds and it made the mother of all thuds and i thought to myself oh well that’s rooted that bumper/spoiler and i then waited for the noise of plastic dragging on the road but it never came so i continued home where under the lights of the driveway i cautiously made my way to the front bumper to find the entire thing fully intact not so much as a bit of blood or fur on the car, no cracks, splits or broken mounts, so the poor animal must of just been small enough to roll under the car, but far out it made a thud! So my question is does anybody have any of those little black ultrasonic devices on your car and do people think they actually work or just a waste of money? the ones i looked at today was called "hopper stopper" and were $29 but I’m sure I’ve seen others for like $7 so yeah what’s your thoughts on them , worth getting or a waste of time?

[/

Years ago many drivers felt they had success by turning the radio up full bore. relying on the noise factor. Seems to have some logic as noise does affect animals.Wouldn't suggest full bore on some of today's units though, unless you want to go deaf. I heard of a couple of guys who put speakers outside on the front of their cars!!?

[Adamsy]

So in the end i thought what the hell it's only $7 may as well get some, the guy at the store said the key to them is keeping them clean as a lot of people just put them on their cars and never touch them again, they then get clogged up and stop working. Seems fair enough i guess if there blocked then no air can travel through them.

Ok results? well after a few trips at night on back roads i can honestly say i haven’t seen a single animal but as some others have mentioned i can’t be sure that it was because of these whistlers or if it was simply because i had got lucky and there wasn’t any animals about at that time but yeah so far so good!

[24psicelica]

So in the end i thought what the hell it's only $7 may as well get some, the guy at the store said the key to them is keeping them clean as a lot of people just put them on their cars and never touch them again, they then get clogged up and stop working. Seems fair enough i guess if there blocked then no air can travel through them.

Ok results? well after a few trips at night on back roads i can honestly say i haven’t seen a single animal but as some others have mentioned i can’t be sure that it was because of these whistlers or if it was simply because i had got lucky and there wasn’t any animals about at that time but yeah so far so good!

they do work i use to work for autobarn in nsw and we had the sales reps come in that use to sell them and they sold plastic ones and the metal ones he even admitted that the plastic ones are piles of **** and don't work but for some reason the metal ones do and they do have the electric ones but they are very expensive but they send out a very annoying clicking sound that for animals is even more annoying but i rather hear that then hitting a 6 foot red roo that will end up on your front seat kicking the **** out of u if its still alive lol

[prometheus]

Wild animals are usually most active around the time of dawn and dusk.

I would think that having good driving lights like some of these would probably be more usefull than a shooroo device.

[captain-sparky]

I work and live in the upper Hunter valley in NSW and work a lot at night on call outs etc. The wollemi national park between muswellbrook and gulgong at night i call 'kangaroo run'. Your guaranteed to see a few roo's and mobile bricks (wombats). I have been using the roo ultra sonic devices on my work truck for years now, I started with the cheap plastic ones and they did nothing. Once they fell off i got two $30 plastic ones and then added two metal ones after the next roo strike. I have found the units with the sound hole on the side work better than the units with the hole on the bottom. They seem to scare off the roo's on the side of the road when close but still do nothing at 100 metres away when going over 80kms/hr(Doppler effect). They do nothing for wombats or black Angus cows. I haven't had any experience with electronic devices so i cannot comment on these ones.

Note. Bright lights and sound confuse animals at night. Stand in front of your car at night with the lights off, when you can see get someone to high beam you while you look at your lights. Instant blindness/ confusion. But at the end of the day good lights, good brakes and active scanning is going to prevent an animal strike, and slowing down while driving helps.

P.S. Sometimes a good swerve will prevent a strike. you still may hit the animal but side panel damage is cheaper than a new front end, same goes for deciding to brake or not. Take a look at the pictures attached. I shouldn't have braked. Only going 60km/hr at the time. The roo wanted to come sit inside the cab. lucky for us it didn't make it. If this happens to you hold your breathe and get out of the car quick. Glass dust isn't good for you. Although driving without the windscreen was an experience.

[Eaglemist]

So in the end i thought what the hell it's only $7 may as well get some, the guy at the store said the key to them is keeping them clean as a lot of people just put them on their cars and never touch them again, they then get clogged up and stop working. Seems fair enough i guess if there blocked then no air can travel through them.

Ok results? well after a few trips at night on back roads i can honestly say i haven't seen a single animal but as some others have mentioned i can't be sure that it was because of these whistlers or if it was simply because i had got lucky and there wasn't any animals about at that time but yeah so far so good!

they do work i use to work for autobarn in nsw and we had the sales reps come in that use to sell them and they sold plastic ones and the metal ones he even admitted that the plastic ones are piles of **** and don't work but for some reason the metal ones do and they do have the electric ones but they are very expensive but they send out a very annoying clicking sound that for animals is even more annoying but i rather hear that then hitting a 6 foot red roo that will end up on your front seat kicking the **** out of u if its still alive lol

Take a big breath...

[GShadow]

I have used the $30 plastic ones and I believe they did save my car.

Apparently they are susceptible to how they are installed, must be horizontal and have a good clean air flow so can't be mounted too close to anything behind or the flow could be disrupted. At 110km/h I could hear a slight whistling through them.

I fitted them before a trip from Melb to Qld with lots of inland side trip and I love late night driving. Anyhow, on the trip saw lots of roo's mostly beside the road. One morning just before dawn I came around a left hand blind corner doing about 110km/h, the corner had a steep embankment about 3 meters high with a property fence at the top. As I came out of the corner and just as the side wash of my headlights showed it there stood a kangaroo at about 25 meters off (yer at 110km/h), something to do with the timing of when and how the kangaroo took off I know it was the 'shoo roo' that did the work. That kangaroo took off up that embankment like I have never seen a roo move before. Years later I did see a kangaroo move very similarly and that was because my blue healer was hot on it's tail, haha. Damb dog went crashing through the bush for 20 minutes before coming back, no amount of shouting would stop him not while he was having that much fun.

Some one pinched the ‘roo shoo’s’ off my car in a surfers paradise car park, I made sure I bought another pair before heading on country roads again.

The scariest Kangaroo experience I ever had was years ago in about 1995 and with out a 'roo Shoo'. I was on the Stuart Hwy heading to Alice Springs somewhere past Coober Pedy. The sun was just coming up and one of the grandest sunrises I had ever seen only I couldn’t take my eyes off the road. Every couple of kilometres there was a dead roo on the road and there were BIG REDS jumping all over the place, on the road, over the road and beside the road (yer I should have pulled over, young and dumb). The fastest I dared drive was about 40km/h maybe 60km/h even then I was dodging, breaking and swerving, it was crazy. I was thinking how the F do you get so many dead roo’s on the road, didn’t take long to find out. A road train passed me at about 120km/h and yep he didn’t stop for nothing! Man, what a clean up it would have been for that Roo bar!

[prometheus]

Lightforce make really good products.

A mate of mine is into the whole 4wd thing and swears by them.

[frenchmansam]

One of my cousins just bought a fairly new used car. He was worried about hitting kangaroos on some of his longer drives so purchased a Roo Shoo (I think thats the name). Im not sure how much it was, but I think it was fairly cheap. He said that the first drive he went on after installing it, a kangaroo jumped straight out in front of his car. Lucky for him he didn't hit it. Now I can't really say they don't work because he is the only person I know that has one, but they certainly don't seem like a foolproof way of avoiding wildlife. But if you can get them for as cheap as some of you guys have seen them, why not give it a go.

[Night Fever]

Having avoided many arts of wildlife (and collected some) over my time, I can say, that a good loud air horn does a reasonable job of telling roos to get out faster.

I found, that kangaroos "usually" make at least 2 final direction changes, when already on the road and in the lights.

Best thing "in theory" is, once you realize that a collision is highly likely:

dim the lights to low beam,

blow the life out of the air horn,

brake hard, staying straight until the last moment,in the middle of the road, leaving room to go either way,

anticipate the roo to turn back the other way,

follow your instinct after that...

Most of the time you don't have time to do all the above, lol, but no harm practicing, when you're alone on the road out bush sometime in the middle of the night.

[Sunsett]

Best thing "in theory" is, once you realize that a collision is highly likely:

dim the lights to low beam,

blow the life out of the air horn,

brake hard, staying straight until the last moment,in the middle of the road, leaving room to go either way,

anticipate the roo to turn back the other way,

follow your instinct after that...

Night Fever, you stole my reply, or is it that I am agreeing with you. I give a big, big thumbs up to dipping your lights and air horns. But never, never, never swerve. I have pulled many people, dead and/or alive out of cars that have swerved for animals.

We also compare wombats to small bar fridges, or automatic sump removers.