En route to work tonight , I spotted three or four raccoons in the middle of the road ahead of me . I mashed on the brakes and turned as far away as I could but still had n't slowed enough . Two or three of them had darted off to my left but the last was running straight forward along the road away from me and I was literally running it down .

Generate a question about the above context.
What caused the speaker to slam on their breaks in an attempt to avoid hitting the raccoons ?