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Comment by rspoerri | Hacker News Reader

Do you remember the time when you had to clean your windshield after driving into holidays?

> The windshield phenomenon is the observation that recently fewer dead insects accumulate on the windshields of people's cars. It has been attributed to a global decline in insect populations caused by human activity.

> 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

I just finished a two-week road trip from Berlin to the Black Forest and back (with other stops in both directions). The windshield was gunked up by the end—more than I expected, but nothing like what I remember from my childhood.

Same here. About two years ago we traveled through Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and had quite some insect gunk on the wind shields. When I told my parents, they said "we used to have that after an hour of driving" (and presumably they went slower than we do today, not having access to fast cars in their youths).

Cars are actually more aerodynamically shaped nowadays. But riding a motorcycle will give you the same result today as 20 years ago. To which I must say: yes, the insects seem to be back in larger numbers this year. At least in Germany.

But not everywhere: the less farm land, the more insects. Like, from literally none on farm land to "I have to completely clean my helmet because of all that yellow goo" in larger forests.

> 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#United_K...

I haven't read the complete study but it appears that they only measured the impacts on the license plate? If so, this doesn't seem like good methodology because the license plate is only a very small part of the vehicle and position can vary wildly between brands and models. The license plate can be the most forward facing part but also be in a little cutout of the front fender.

It’s a great example of Scientisim and not Science. Of course the result confirms the popular narrative, so it will be cited without question. But the dead-obvious observation would be that by definition aerodynamic things tend to impact less, it’s literally what they’re designed to do.

Yap, this is the saddest thing. After a month long road trip around Europe the windshield & front air vent were almost clean.

Insects are spread out over more cars now.

Interesting way to look at it. But logically sound.

Quite a bit of this is owed to traffic patterns and windshield glass changes though

Yes, last week. Driving from Texas to Wyoming and back. Tons of splattered insects.

I did a one week roadtrip from California to Colorado this summer and had to clean my windshield at every gas station due to splattered bugs. It’s my first real roadtrip so I don’t have any basis for comparison.

Yes it happened two days ago.

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