Glad to see one NASA engineer, Mark Rober got a job conducting an unusual experiment to find out how compassionate people are when they see a critter appearing ready to cross the road.

If you’re like most people, you probably swerve, slow down or brake to avoid a clueless animal that thinks it can get over to the other side without getting creamed.

However, Rober wanted to know for sure and to test his theory, he placed small rubber animals far outside the driving lane and then observed the actions of 1,000 vehicles.

For the most part, people didn’t have to do anything unusual to avoid hitting the fake varmints that included rubber snakes, turtles and tarantulas, which were on the shoulder of the road.

But in a disturbing finding, Rober discovered that six percent, or 60 drivers, actually went out of their way to run over the rubber animals. Of this number, nearly 90 percent were truck or SUV drivers.

He called these offenders “cold-blooded rubber-animal killers.” On the other hand, Rober also observed that several people actually stopped to see if they could help the helpless little rubber creatures.

 

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