I do also if the traffic permits it. This is another example of power or actually perceived power. People are feeling more and more powerless in their daily lives and killing a small creature shows the animal who is boss. It’s not just turtles either. How can someone run over a raccoon or opossum in a 25 or 30 mile speed zone? I can understand on a major highway but in residential communities there is no excuse for not steering around it.
Repulsive.
There's a large park across the street from my house, many oak trees and many squirrels, they frequently cross the street to my yard because I have two walnut trees. I don't care, they can have all the walnuts they want but I've observed them many times, dart out into the street, regardless of whether a car is coming or not and stop dead in their tracks in the path of an oncoming vehicle, vehicle swerves to avoid them but at the same time said squirrel decides to move on, resulting frequently in a smashed squirrel.
It happened to me with a cat, I swerved to avoid him and instead ran over him, it wasn't intentional, animals are unpredictable is all.
Sometimes those critters change direction while you’re trying to steer around them, and they end up running right under the wheel.
The one and only time I’ve ever hit an animal was a possum in a 40 mph zone.
It was right at dusk, I was already going ~45, and the turkey behind me was trying to go 48-50...IOW, aggressively tailgating me so close he was nearly making bumper to bumper contact. There was a car in the other lane, no room to swerve, stop, or even slow down, and it bolted out of the trees at the side of the road.
I felt awful about it, but the only choices I had were hit it or go off the road and potentially into someone’s house, literally, or at the very least destroy the car and possibly kill myself.