I can hardly believe the hatred toward snakes being expressed by many people in this thread.
The first snake is a Black Ratsnake and is harmelss at any size to any person. There is absolutely no reason to kill them, even if they are big and in your house. Yes, if you pick it up, it might try to bite, but their teeth are like the size of tiny little pinheads and will scratch you at worse. 9 times out of 10 ratsnakes won't bite even if you pick them up. Compare that to a squirrels. I've seen a squirrel, unprovoked, send someone to the emergency room. For the record, a Ratsnake only goes into people's homes if there is food in there (mice and rats mostly) for them. If you want to prevent ratsnakes from entering your home, seal any holes and get rid of the rodents. I understand your concern for your child, especially given the recent media attention on snakes after that girl was killed by a captive python, but please understand how completely different the situations are. The python that killed the girl was over 12-feet long, as big around as a human leg, used to the smell of humans, and seriously underfed.
The second snake is a Brownsnake though I don't know what subspecies. Also completely harmless and also a very small species.
Even venomous species do not need to be killed. Did you know that in the northeast, the only people to have been bitten by Timber Rattlesnakes in the past few decades were ALL trying to either kill them or pick them up? It's a perfect example of the saying 'if you leave it alone, it will leave you alone'.
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I am with the person that said the first snake looks like it has a triangular head. That is what I look for. But the picture of the rat snake seems to have a triangular head too. If the head is rounded and seems to be just an extension of the body, the snake is nearly always harmless. One exception would be the black racer. They can be harmful to small children. They choke their prey. My brother was in the cornfield hoeing corn once when a black racer tried to crawl up his leg. It took my mother, my other brother and him to pull the snake off him. They finally got the hoe in between the snake and his leg and pulled it off.
A black snake is fat and will run away from you. A racer is very long and thin and runs towards you.
If you want to stop the snakes from sunning on your rock driveway just sprinkle it with lime. Make it a thick layer. If it is cement, put trips of two sided tape on it. As they crawl across the tape, it will stick to them and trap them so you can kill them without their being able to strike.
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I'm sorry, but as scary as your brother's experience may have been, he was still in no real danger. As scary as large racers may be, they too are not a threat to children and do not choke their prey. It may be hard to believe but racers have a hard time eating mammals, even rodents. Racers cannot constrict their prey to kill it and thus need to swallow it alive. This limits them greatly in what they can eat because a rat, once grabbed, would be able to inflict serious injury upon a racer with its teeth. For this reason, Racer feed mostly on other reptiles and amphibians. They are very deffensive though and if they feel threatened AND cornered, may try to scare you away or even charge in rare cases. I can't imagine what the snake was doing trying to get up your brother's shorts.
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