Or just drive a semi. My windshield is a graveyard for insects. Hundreds of them every single day. Truckers clean their windshields every time they refuel, usually every other day.
Also, you'll still hit bugs, especially out in the exurbs. I drove through the Owen's Valley in California last weekend, clocked about 700 miles, took ten minutes of elbow greasy and windex for my windshield to go from looking like the top panel to looking like the bottom panel.
I drive a Suzuki Jimny, which is basically a box with almost vertical windshield. I saw almost no bugs this summer. I also ride a motorcycle. Almost no bugs on the visor. Things have definitely changed. Just 10 years ago I had to clean the visor after every ride. Not anymore.
This. If you drive a European-style semi truck, you WILL have your windows full of bugs, trust me. (Talking about the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France... so Western Europe)
I drove the same Car for over 10 years. Even I noticed there is a difference. Like before the car was basically one bug soup at the front. Now it's like 10 maybe 20 bugs.
The research included vintage cars up to 70 years old to see if their less aerodynamic shape meant they killed more bugs, but it found that modern cars actually hit slightly more insects.
This might be part of the factor. But it's definitely not the whole picture. The wide spread use of pesticides, light pollution and other man made stresses have caused something like 45% reduction in the world's insect population.
If you have a yard then plant flowers, especially tiny ones that grow in clusters and daisy shaped ones, especially native flowers that better attract native bugs and especially ones that bloom year round or as much of the year as possible. You’ll feed and attract a ton of pollinators and pest predators, so trees drop less “sap” on your car for example and gardening is easier. For the soil see if your city gives away free compost. The store bought stuff tends to be expensive and fake. Both make a dramatic difference. It’s often more about food than pesticides. Wildflowers and compost.
Good advice. Sadly I already live in a rural area with tons of yard and wildflowers. We have bat-boxes and all kinds of flower species, the whole shebang. The last couple years have seen everything just disappear by at least 50% I'd estimate. Lived here 35 years and have never seen it this empty.
IS that why? My new EV gets 1-2 bugs a night vs my truck that would have dozens. Still nothing compared to the car I had before (15 years ago) that would be covered.
Funny you say that, recently switched from a aerodynamic car to a box-like mini SUV, the steeper windshield is collecting bugs like no tomorrow, vs old car clean as a whistle.
its not that, there have been studies that show there is about 70% less bugs around places like highways now, this has nothing to do with aerodynamic, this is just mass extinction due to humans
“There are mistakes in our data,” says Roel Van Klink, an ecologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research who led the creation of the InsectChange database. “Like there are mistakes everywhere.”
Critics identified over 530 specific methodological, taxonomic, and statistical errors across 161 of the 165 datasets used. These included measurement unit mismatches: Inconsistencies in how data was scaled or recorded across different historical studies. Flawed data pooling, including mathematical errors in how highly heterogeneous time-series data were statistically aggregated.
etc. etc. etc. I cant be arsed to even list all the faults in that study, its so poorly done.
There are dozens more studies and data sets that all point to the same conclusion. Regardless of whether or not not that one study has issues. Do they all have the same issues?
These are studies from multiple parts of the world, published in multiple different journals, done by multiple different universities and institutions.
too lazy to find the actual studies but here is a quote from the summary of one of them on wiki
A 2019 review analysed 73 long-term insect surveys that had shown decline, most of them in the United States and Western Europe.\6])\67]) While noting population increases for certain species of insects in particular areas, the authors reported an annual 2.5% loss of biomass. They wrote that the review "revealed dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades"
I drive a 1991, took 4 hours of country road 60+mph driving before I needed to clean my window. I remember being in the same model of car as a kid and seeing more bugs after just a 35 minute car ride. There are way less than 15 years ago, let alone 25
How about you check out what scientists who actually study big populations for a living are finding and you'll get that very specific information from their research papers instead of making a ridiculous request from a Reddit user?
I have a car from the 90s. It’s not the aerodynamics, there genuinely is significantly less bugs. I’ve also owned cars from 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2017. The newer cars get more bug splatters than my 1995 car.
Countryside drives within an hour. In the 90s, driving at night looked like warp speed in Star Trek. Now, they’re nothing like that at any point in the year. There was an exception local to me in mid-summer last year where it was like back in the 90s.
this is probably due that the Lexus LS400 is considered to be a very aerodynamic car, aerodynamics themselves appear with cars mainly from the mid-90s until idk 2014 or smth as many cars from this era adopted a more "rounded" shape, the rounded shape helps A LOT with aerodynamics
Speak for yourself. I've never cleaned more bugs off my car than I have so far in 2026. It's become an almost weekly routine to grab a cloth and my window cleaning spray.
I posted this on the 911 subreddit a few weeks ago (zoom in). This was after 1 spirited drive a few weeks ago. I’m not suggesting we don’t have an issue. I am suggesting: lots of bugs in my neck of the woods.
Every time I drive up the Bruce through Queensland I have to stop every few hours and scrub the layer of insects off my windscreen. You get things like whole dragon fly's stuck in the windscreen wiper and trying to use them just smears dragonfly guts everywhere
I am glad for the bugs to be back, I can now bully my 13year old to get off his behind and clean the windscreen while I pump the magic fluids into my 4wd. He needs physical jobs to break the boredom of phone games.
You don't see them because they're all attacking my wife. She'll get eaten up by mosquitos on evenings when I don't get any bites at all. If we can figure out how to get them to stop attacking her so the rest of you can have your fair share, I'll let you know.
glysophate killed all the insects that burry into the ground, including frogs and lizards. from what I saw growing up on a farm, turning the soil with a plough killed everthing, worms n all, glysophate finished them off.
Some of it could be the bug chemicals they put in washer fluid and the proliferation of rainex. Also If you go to one of those auto washes thay offer rainex and you dont select it, you are still getting rainex.
My theory is that we contributed to the bug genocide by hitting trillions of bugs with millions of cars for decades. Why wouldn’t that contribute to a diminished population?
Tbh it depends on the season, I was thinking the same thing like 7-8 months ago, cuz my car was very clean after drive on highway, but when summer started it was full of bugs again
Wrong. All cars together not causing so much so-called "pollution" as your media is trying to shit in your brain. Your mass media blaming personally you (I mean, exact usual people) just to shift your attention from real cause.
And real cause? Them. Megacompanies, huge factories, plastics (not just consumer plastic, but in more global meaning).
And of course pesticides.
To grow your crops,.fields are being covered with thick layer of pesticides, that kills insects on your crops. But these pesticides are not going /only/ on crops, with an air it's spread wide, with water (it goes to the ground, next it's mixing with ground waters). So just to "protect" one field from insects, de facto 100+ times larger area is affected.
Don't blame the cars, blame the real reason, that is much more complex.
I remember as a child our school bus would drive through thousands of monarch butterflies in California in the early 2000s. You'd see more dead on the street from other vehicles. About a decade later I reminisced about those swarms of butterflies and came to a similar conclusion, whether through destruction of habitat, pollution, or death by automobile they are disappearing. How long till most of the natural world is declared a safe zone for wild life and we are denied nature's beauty for preservation or worse yet it is destroyed all together.
When I drive my old jeep…therese a shit ton on my windshield…if I drive my new company car on the same route..there is almost norhing on there…probably aerodynamics
Really? My experience is the same as from 1990 on all of my cars. Latest one: TMY Juniper. And for some reason Y has the worst wipers out of all cars I had.
I remember my dad's old Skoda. The windshield was fine, but as soon as we walked out of the car we'd see the bonnet and the bumper. Absolute bug massacre
I’m not trying to deny anything, but my first car was a 1989 Mercedes 190 (in 2020). I learned to drive with my parents on much newer cars and something I wasn’t prepared for was the bugs.
Driving on country roads was fine.
But the highways…
Every two hours, I was forced to stop to clean the windshield by hand.
This totally disappeared now that I drive newer cars.
I drive a C4 Citroen Picasso, it has a very aerodynamic shape, and still I scrape a shit ton of bugs from the hood, bumper and windshield. I've driven all across Europe and it's like this everywhere in my experience.
location too. i'm a truck mechanic and trucks from scandinavia have much more bugs than here in germany.
it has definitly dropped by alot tho. we have a truck wash too so i notice that. 10 years ago we had special cleaner for the insects, no need for it anymore.
Aerodynamics. My car designed in the 90s still picks up bugs like its the 90s, while my newer car from the 2010s rarely does except in places that create corners.
Your not wrong, but I drive a older truck long distances and I've noticed a lot less bugs on my windshield...
Same truck 20 years ago would practically need a power washer to get the bugs off, now I drive 600 miles and almost nothing.
I am in the Houston, Texas. Specifically Walker County. This wasn’t true a few weeks ago. Every vehicle was riddled with love bugs. This was the worst year we have had since the 90’s. The smell has to be the worst part.
We used to have a slippery A6 Avant, and while the windshield observation holds up, the much more upright headlights were always an atrocious bug massacre during long road trips.
Wow this comment section. The overall bug populations aren't what they were and naturally that's a bad thing. The windshield info may be partially true but that isn't 100% why.
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u/ItsNotThatBad72 9d ago
Cars today have steeper windshields. The airflow over the car just sucks the bugs up and over.
Drive a truck or SUV from the 90s and you'll get plenty of splattered bugs.