Over the years the question has been asked quite a few times, and like any good name, there is a story behind it.
A number of years ago while with Up & Running (an Ottawa Mac based reseller that I sold my shares in 1991), we were looking at buying a company. It has some people, locations and agreements that we were very interested in. During negotiations our lawyer was quite adamant that he thought it was not a good match for us. After a few hours of discussions he used the phrase, "guys, the company is road kill".
He was right, so we did not buy the company, however the name stuck. When we formed byDesign in 1991 we used Road Kill International Limited as the cover name for the new company, and when we split up byDesign in 1994, I modified the name to Road Kill Infomatics Ltd for the development arm that I took over.