7 ms·

Anecdotally, while driving along Minnesota's segment of I94 in the '90s, one would have to stop and scrape the bugs off the front window and grill. Today, this

by jerry1979 5y ago

Anecdotally, while driving along Minnesota's segment of I94 in the '90s, one would have to stop and scrape the bugs off the front window and grill. Today, this is no longer a problem.

jonnycomputer 5y ago
Same here, but in California's Central Valley.
- srcmap 5y ago
  Remember need to scrape off bugs from windshield after each trip thru I5 ~10 years ago. No need to do that anymore..... On the other hand, in my back yard, I grow a lot veggi, strawberry with worm casting from kitchen scraps. I do still lot of insects. A lot of birds nested around my house. Produce 10-15 young birds. I found a very cool looking giant tomato worm a size of my biggest finger. It ate half of (7 ft height ) tomato plant in 2 days. The Strawberry, cucumbers, other veggies grow with worm casting taste SO much better than from anything store .
  - jonnycomputer 5y ago
    A lot of those drives of mine were on highways between planted fields.
  - cookrn 5y ago
    I love creating little sanctuaries and do think they’re useful as pockets of support and diversity. Also, the Tomato Hornworm is an awesome creature and results in a Hummingbird Moth. I try to feed them vegetative branches and keep them separate if I can so that they hang around and we still get tomatoes.
thisiscorrect 5y ago
Could that be explained by improved aerodynamics of cars now compared to then? Has that been studied?
- papito 5y ago
  It's not like we were all driving in Chevrolet Bel Airs in the 90s and now switched to Lamborghinis.
  - LanceH 5y ago
    It is an variable that very obviously needs to be controlled and is worth mentioning.
    - papito 5y ago
      The studies for this are scarce, but this is curious and counterintuitive: "The research also found that modern cars, with a more aerodynamic body shape, killed more insects than boxier vintage cars up to 70 years old." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon
    - toss1 5y ago
      Yup, not only that, but the Lamborghini Countach has a Cd of 0.42, while every car on this list has a lower Cd, except for the original VW Beetle [1]. (Although, TBF, the Lambo's wing and aero package adds a lot of drag in exchange for much greater downforce) [1] https://ecomodder.com/wiki/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Drag_List https://ecomodder.com/wiki/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Drag_List
  - thisiscorrect 5y ago
    My intuition for aerodynamics must not be as good as yours. But looking at https://caradvise.com/blog/2019/08/17/most-popular-cars-in-the-90s/ https://caradvise.com/blog/2019/08/17/most-popular-cars-in-t... and https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g36005989/best-selling-cars-2021/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g36005989/best-selling-car... is interesting. In particular, the way the headlights sit on the front of the car seems to have changed a lot. Cars in the 90s look to have lights that pointed straight ahead. That seems to have evolved over time to a more streamlined position and orientation.
    - 5y ago
strict9 5y ago
This is a common anecdote, and a situation I remember as that's when I started driving. Also one used in scientific study with seemingly dire results: >The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and found an 80% decline in abundance. It also found a parallel decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live on insects. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-number-insects https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-spla...
papito 5y ago
YES. Drove with my parents to the Catskills in upstate NY almost every weekend in the early 2000s. The windshield was covered in bug splatter. Now - nothing. Edit: it was a Hyundai Excel https://retrocars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyundai_Excel/Accent https://retrocars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyundai_Excel/Accent
csmoak 5y ago
I just drove across the US (down the east coast, across the south, up the Rockies) and found I had to do this only after driving across Texas.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  meaning bugs are doing well in Texas, but not nowhere else? Really weird
  - eddiecalzone 5y ago
    Meaning Texas has the highest speed limits in the country
    - csmoak 5y ago
      The speed limit went up to 85 in Texas. It seemed to max out at 75 or 80 in other places. I'm not sure if an extra 5-10mph made the difference, but it could have.
  - karlkatzke 5y ago
    People aren't as densely packed in most parts of Texas, so it might be explainable that way. A lot of the state is also hay fields instead of food crops that are more intensively controlled for pests. But I've noticed a big change in Texas in recent years. The last two years I haven't had to use pesticide in my residential vegetable garden. I've had to control for mold/fungal infections, but not for insects. And I live up against a nature preserve and try to keep most of my property as natural as possible.
brandonmenc 5y ago
This also stopped being a problem for me in the 90s when I started driving my mom's Dodge Intrepid, which was significantly more aerodynamic than other cars of the era.
hinkley 5y ago
I recall my dad checking the washer fluid level before road trips because we ran dry on a previous trip and it was clear we wouldn’t make it home without hitting a gas station ASAP.
skinkestek 5y ago
I didn't drive to much until 20 or so years ago but I think I saw a lot more of ot back in the day. In according to the more usual explanations I've been working if lights along the road might be part of the problem.
- lrem 5y ago
  I drive long distances through Europe every now and then since 2009-ish. That's only 12 years and much of my drive is through farmland and forests, no lights other than the cars for at least 1000km in aggregate. In 2009 the windshield and lights would need a solid scrub every couple hundred km. Now I don't bother cleaning when refuelling.
l8rpeace 5y ago
Try south of St Louis, MO on 55 (specifically south of Cape Girardeau, MO) in the summer. That might be where all the bugs have gone. \s
BayAreaEscapee 5y ago
Everytime this "the insects are dying" thread comes up, people come out of the woodwork with anecdotes like this. But I am one of them! I remember getting my first car in the late eighties and scrubbing tons of splattered insects off my windshield every time I went to the gas station. Now I barely even notice them. Antecdote is not data, but I certainly believe people when they say the insects are dying.
- thrashh 5y ago
  But people who haven’t seen fewer insects probably aren’t posting. Anecdotes are misleading and they are always a huge trick.
  - Igelau 5y ago
    Indeed. I've never seen more insects, birds, toads, and bats in PA than I did this summer. Some nights the katydids were deafeningly loud. The only thing that seemed to decline was spotted lantern flies, thankfully.
    - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
      I remember in the 90s sitting on my grandmother's porch in rural PA at night. Huge moths everywhere. Luna moths being just about as common as mosquitos. Beetles bangings into the walls. Chubby spiders having so much food they couldn't even eat half of it. The walls were absolutely plastered with insects and you'd have to try to not get covered fireflies while walking through the grass. Now there are some mosquitoes and crickets. Maybe a few moths sometimes. The walls outside are spotless. Living in Asia now, I see insects about as much as I saw them back then. I have to wonder if there were even more back in the 90s, or if things are as good as ever here. But it's nice to see life.

Anecdotally, while driving along Minnesota's segment of I94 in the '90s, one would have to stop and scrape the bugs off the front window and grill. Today, this is no longer a problem.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

Same here, but in California's Central Valley.

srcmap 5y ago
Remember need to scrape off bugs from windshield after each trip thru I5 ~10 years ago. No need to do that anymore..... On the other hand, in my back yard, I grow a lot veggi, strawberry with worm casting from kitchen scraps. I do still lot of insects. A lot of birds nested around my house. Produce 10-15 young birds. I found a very cool looking giant tomato worm a size of my biggest finger. It ate half of (7 ft height ) tomato plant in 2 days. The Strawberry, cucumbers, other veggies grow with worm casting taste SO much better than from anything store .
- jonnycomputer 5y ago
  A lot of those drives of mine were on highways between planted fields.
- cookrn 5y ago
  I love creating little sanctuaries and do think they’re useful as pockets of support and diversity. Also, the Tomato Hornworm is an awesome creature and results in a Hummingbird Moth. I try to feed them vegetative branches and keep them separate if I can so that they hang around and we still get tomatoes.

thisiscorrect 5y ago

Could that be explained by improved aerodynamics of cars now compared to then? Has that been studied?

papito 5y ago
It's not like we were all driving in Chevrolet Bel Airs in the 90s and now switched to Lamborghinis.
- LanceH 5y ago
  It is an variable that very obviously needs to be controlled and is worth mentioning.
  - papito 5y ago
    The studies for this are scarce, but this is curious and counterintuitive: "The research also found that modern cars, with a more aerodynamic body shape, killed more insects than boxier vintage cars up to 70 years old." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon
  - toss1 5y ago
    Yup, not only that, but the Lamborghini Countach has a Cd of 0.42, while every car on this list has a lower Cd, except for the original VW Beetle [1]. (Although, TBF, the Lambo's wing and aero package adds a lot of drag in exchange for much greater downforce) [1] https://ecomodder.com/wiki/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Drag_List https://ecomodder.com/wiki/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Drag_List
- thisiscorrect 5y ago
  My intuition for aerodynamics must not be as good as yours. But looking at https://caradvise.com/blog/2019/08/17/most-popular-cars-in-the-90s/ https://caradvise.com/blog/2019/08/17/most-popular-cars-in-t... and https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g36005989/best-selling-cars-2021/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g36005989/best-selling-car... is interesting. In particular, the way the headlights sit on the front of the car seems to have changed a lot. Cars in the 90s look to have lights that pointed straight ahead. That seems to have evolved over time to a more streamlined position and orientation.
  - 5y ago

strict9 5y ago

This is a common anecdote, and a situation I remember as that's when I started driving. Also one used in scientific study with seemingly dire results: >The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and found an 80% decline in abundance. It also found a parallel decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live on insects. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-number-insects https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-spla...

papito 5y ago

YES. Drove with my parents to the Catskills in upstate NY almost every weekend in the early 2000s. The windshield was covered in bug splatter. Now - nothing. Edit: it was a Hyundai Excel https://retrocars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyundai_Excel/Accent https://retrocars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyundai_Excel/Accent

csmoak 5y ago

I just drove across the US (down the east coast, across the south, up the Rockies) and found I had to do this only after driving across Texas.

inter_netuser 5y ago
meaning bugs are doing well in Texas, but not nowhere else? Really weird
- eddiecalzone 5y ago
  Meaning Texas has the highest speed limits in the country
  - csmoak 5y ago
    The speed limit went up to 85 in Texas. It seemed to max out at 75 or 80 in other places. I'm not sure if an extra 5-10mph made the difference, but it could have.
- karlkatzke 5y ago
  People aren't as densely packed in most parts of Texas, so it might be explainable that way. A lot of the state is also hay fields instead of food crops that are more intensively controlled for pests. But I've noticed a big change in Texas in recent years. The last two years I haven't had to use pesticide in my residential vegetable garden. I've had to control for mold/fungal infections, but not for insects. And I live up against a nature preserve and try to keep most of my property as natural as possible.

brandonmenc 5y ago

This also stopped being a problem for me in the 90s when I started driving my mom's Dodge Intrepid, which was significantly more aerodynamic than other cars of the era.

hinkley 5y ago

I recall my dad checking the washer fluid level before road trips because we ran dry on a previous trip and it was clear we wouldn’t make it home without hitting a gas station ASAP.

skinkestek 5y ago

I didn't drive to much until 20 or so years ago but I think I saw a lot more of ot back in the day. In according to the more usual explanations I've been working if lights along the road might be part of the problem.

lrem 5y ago
I drive long distances through Europe every now and then since 2009-ish. That's only 12 years and much of my drive is through farmland and forests, no lights other than the cars for at least 1000km in aggregate. In 2009 the windshield and lights would need a solid scrub every couple hundred km. Now I don't bother cleaning when refuelling.

l8rpeace 5y ago

Try south of St Louis, MO on 55 (specifically south of Cape Girardeau, MO) in the summer. That might be where all the bugs have gone. \s

BayAreaEscapee 5y ago

Everytime this "the insects are dying" thread comes up, people come out of the woodwork with anecdotes like this. But I am one of them! I remember getting my first car in the late eighties and scrubbing tons of splattered insects off my windshield every time I went to the gas station. Now I barely even notice them. Antecdote is not data, but I certainly believe people when they say the insects are dying.

thrashh 5y ago
But people who haven’t seen fewer insects probably aren’t posting. Anecdotes are misleading and they are always a huge trick.
- Igelau 5y ago
  Indeed. I've never seen more insects, birds, toads, and bats in PA than I did this summer. Some nights the katydids were deafeningly loud. The only thing that seemed to decline was spotted lantern flies, thankfully.
  - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
    I remember in the 90s sitting on my grandmother's porch in rural PA at night. Huge moths everywhere. Luna moths being just about as common as mosquitos. Beetles bangings into the walls. Chubby spiders having so much food they couldn't even eat half of it. The walls were absolutely plastered with insects and you'd have to try to not get covered fireflies while walking through the grass. Now there are some mosquitoes and crickets. Maybe a few moths sometimes. The walls outside are spotless. Living in Asia now, I see insects about as much as I saw them back then. I have to wonder if there were even more back in the 90s, or if things are as good as ever here. But it's nice to see life.