I hit a pigeon in someone's driveway a bunch of years ago, probably 7 or 8 now. Turns out, it was a pet. She called in and wanted UPS to replace it. Center manager talked to her a bunch and UPS did not pay to replace it. I was told that if we did pay, I would have been charged with an accident. I was advised by quite a few people not to talk to the people about it or anything like that.
I delivered there about a month ago. The woman was home, so I introduced myself, asked if she lived there about 8 years ago and I apologized. She started laughing and said, "Be right back." Her best friend is an HR person with UPS and jokes with her about the pigeon constantly and she wanted to show me the pigeon ornament she received for Christmas from the HR person. She thought it was pretty funny that people still give me crap about it.
When she called in, she thought I had to have come speeding in to her yard to hit it. I had actually seen them, slowed way down, honked and thought they had gotten out of the way. I was pretty darn surprised to see the one had been hit. I thought at the time, it was pretty surprising they did not fly away. No one was home at the time and my mistake was not throwing it into the tall grass. I just moved it to the side of the driveway.