This is actually due to evolution. Insect populations have evolved generation by generation such that the ones who avoid flying over roadways survive more often, and in time we end up with less bugs getting killed. Because the lifecycle of insects is very short, this can happen easily over the course of decades, enough to witness in one human lifetime.
That doesn't prove anything. Disturbing burrowing bugs or bugs in grass and bushes with rumbling and lights is easily enough to account for a vast difference alone...Then consider the environment was more wild with more habitat space for bugs compared to a road...
I think it casts a reasonable doubt on the simple theory that wide spread use of pesticide somehow killed off enough bugs that we no longer have them hitting our windshields. If bug populations were dwindling you wouldn’t encounter them in the wild this way.
It’s more likely I think that most successful reproduction for the past century has increasingly been done by bugs who avoid flying over roads. There could be many reasons why they do this. Perhaps some sense the vast asphalt plain and prefer to stay in greener areas. Temperatures above roads in full sun are much hotter than above grass. Turbulence encountered by cars may encourage some bugs to seek calmer airspaces.
So just to be clear: your theory (which has absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support it, and is entirely your personal anecdotes of which there's no causal relationship established whatsoever) refutes both broad evidence of how much damage pesticides do to outside of the target species (and to humans, and birds) but also refutes extensive scientific evidence that we are living through a time of massive ecological die-offs of species?
I would bet they don't live rurally or havent been alive very long. Anyone rural alive over the last 30 years shouldve noticed a decline everywhere around them....would also expect them to notice bugs are different by the road to in the fields to by the ponds, and that different times of year, weather etc, changes which bugs are out and how many are out...its harder to notice these things in suburbs or cities.
I really don't think it does. Especially since it'd be an entirely different set of bugs. You'd be hitting crickets and other bugs you wouldn't find on a road.
