Drivers Keep Crashing Into Feral Pigs on the Fastest Highway in the Country
Colliding into a 400-pound feral pig at 85 miles an hour can do some damage
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Photo: Minds eye
Colliding into a 400-pound feral pig at 85 miles an hour can do some damage. Since a new stretch of State Highway 130 near Austin opened on October 24 with the highest speed limit in the country, at least four such wrecks have occurred. Miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured. But as traffic picks up on the new toll road, it’s likely only a matter of time before the combination of pig and car becomes deadly.
Despite a new law authorizing hunting wild pigs from helicopters, Texas’ feral hog population sits at around 2.5 million and growing, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, offering little solace for drivers. Curbing the hog threat will probably require toll road officials and the state to work with neighboring landowners to implement mitigation strategies, like trapping the pigs and erecting stronger fences to prevent them from wandering into the road.
But pigs are smart, and strategies to keep them at bay don’t always work. Authorities predict there will be a lot of “deceased hogs splattered across the road” and a lot more wrecks, as well.
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