Like most people, I have my share of fears, both rational and ir-.

Given how much time I spend in the saddle, I guess it makes sense some of those fears are bike-centric.

Curiously, though I’m cautious and certainly aware of the bad things that can happen when cars and bikes collide, my biggest, most irrational, bike fear involves … roadkill.

In my twisted, tortured little mind, one of the worst things that could happen to me on a commute would be pedal along and encounter a bloated carcass. Rabbit, opossum, squirrel … doesn’t matter. A car approaches from the rear. I instinctively get a little closer to the curb. The car moves to the left to get around, with the dead critter between us. I get to the stinking remains the same time as the vehicle. The car’s passenger-front tire hits it, um, dead-on, and the beastie’s reeking innards spew out — all over little ol’ me.

OK, it doesn’t exactly keep me up at night, but I can’t help but think about such a nightmare scenario every time I happen upon a road waffle.

And it seems lately I’ve happened upon a lot of roadkill.

Part of it’s seasonal.

Every fall, I notice there seems to be more roadkill than normal. Then it dawns on me that this is about the time the turkey vultures migrate on down to Cabo, where, as far as I know, they stick little umbrellas in their south-of-the-border carrion and bask in the winter warmth.

With those scavengers gone, the bodies up north start piling up … or, at least, seem to be more visible on the roads.

Whether the buzzards’ fault or not, just the other day I had a regular tour de mort.

As I pulled out of my driveway, I happened upon a roadkill rabbit that spilled his guts all over my residential street. On my way to my kids’ school, I saw: two more dead rabbits, a dead squirrel, a dead mouse, two dead birds and a dead something-or-other that had been reduced to little more than fur and organs, all in a trip of just over two miles.

On my commute to work, I saw two more dead bunnies, another dead squirrel, an extremely sleepy opossum and a dead snake.

That’s a lot of death, folks, and you’d better believe I gave each and every one of the rotting corpses a wide berth.

Going to work is hard enough sometimes. I don’t need the added burden of a bunny-gut necklace, too.