One time years ago, I was driving on a four-lane highway when I observed a plastic bag flapping around the road ahead of me. Other cars were slowing or swerving to avoid it, which I thought was peculiar, so I also slowed a little bit but (admittedly) mostly to avoid hitting the other cars.

As I passed, I learned that the plastic bag was actually a dog that was (for unknown reasons) trying to cross the highway in moderately heavy traffic. It was pure luck on my part that I didn't hit the dog as it ran right behind my vehicle.

Sometimes even humans aren't the best judges in a split second of an object's estimated mass and/or whether it might contain some sort of soul. (I was around 30, and neither my cognition nor vision were noticeably impaired)