Have you ever been hit by a deer?

[SKIP KILPATRICK]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Many times!

Total loss of two cars and a pickup truck.

Serious damage to minivan and a car.

Minor damage to two cars.

Lot's of deer in Virginia.

[SKIP KILPATRICK]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Once almost runover by a buck while pheasant hunting in Iowa. He came crashing through a fence line leaped over a barbwire fence and almost landed on top of me.

Nearly crapped my pants!

[UCanoe_2]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

According to the Pew Charitable Trust, about 200 people are killed per year in vehicle collisions with wild animals. I haven't found a breakdown by species, but I'm sure many, and probably most, of these accidents are caused by white tailed deer. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...gress-can-help

Rutting season in November is a prime period for deer-vehicle accidents. Bucks are on the prowl in search of does, and like our own species they loose all common sense when driven by testosterone.

My wife hit a deer with her 2002 Subaru several years ago just after Thanksgiving. The car was a total loss. She called me to pick her up. By the time I got there, the cop and the tow truck driver had recovered the deer from the road side. They asked if I wanted the deer, and of course I couldn't turn down the free protein.

If anyone is dreaming of a road kill diet, be forewarned: This deer appeared to be intact on the outside, with only a few scuffs and scrapes. But when I field dressed the deer, I discovered that the collision had burst its stomach and spewed digestive contents all over the body cavity. It was a filthy, messy butchering job, and about 25% of the meat was inedible. Yuck!

[Mrleft88]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

1993 My first (and only) brand new vehicle a dark blue/purplish Ford F150 pull out of the dealership and head towards home. Mile 7 on the odometer I see a deer hauling ass across a field. I slow down so it can cross in front of me. But it zigzagged and nailed me just in front of the rear wheel. Passenger side luckily so it didn't mess up the gas flap. but it left a football sized dent before bounding off in to the woods.... 7 miles! They say the first ding is the most heart breaking..... I was expecting it to come from another car in a parking lot several weeks down the calendar....

[Jfitzger]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Weeks ago I was riding my bicycle on my regular daily ride going downhill, luckily my hands were on the brake levers because two deer cluttered across the road right in front of me and if I hadn't hit my brakes they would've hit me, and I had just been thinking I wonder if anyone ever gets hit by a deer on a bicycle.

There is a hard pack single track trail I used to ride that follows the Des Plaines river. I was going through a heavy forested section at about 18mph when I rounded a corner and a buck was about 10' in front of me. I didn't have time to brake so I steered off trail through a bush, stretching up my legs and narrowly missing a tree. I have no doubt I would have lost that fight. Animals aren't used to something that moves that quick and quiet and I got to see a lot of wild life I probably wouldn't have had otherwise.

I really don't understand why highway departments keep putting deer crossings on busy highways. you would think they would want to direct them to quiet, less trafficked roads.

[David G]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Weeks ago I was riding my bicycle on my regular daily ride going downhill, luckily my hands were on the brake levers because two deer cluttered across the road right in front of me and if I hadn't hit my brakes they would've hit me, and I had just been thinking I wonder if anyone ever gets hit by a deer on a bicycle.

Patrick McManus?

After many years of driving the back roads around here, often fastly and often in fog, over and back both the Cascades & Coast Range, seeing many deer dead alongside the road, and even seen a few get hit... I never managed to hit one. Or an elk (though those are far less common). Sheer dumb luck.

I have been hit by a deer, though. Hit with hoof and antler. I've told the story here before about going deer hunting with only a knife. If you're curious, search 'my last deer hunt' or suchlike.

[LOKI]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

I was hit on the drivers side of my HHR at 4:30 AM on my way to work. I was in the middle of a whiteout snowstorm so had slowed to 50KPH in stead of the normal 100KPH. The deers head appeared in my windshield then wham. Every panel on that side of the car, including the hood was dented, the doors majorly. Drivers door was jammed until I rolled the front edge out at work, the rear door was crushed to the point that it stayed that way for the rest of the vehicles life. The deer disappeared into the blizzard so I'm not sure of its fate. The car had 450,000 KM on it so I didn't go to insurance as they would have written it off leaving me on the hook for a replacement....

[Tom Montgomery]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?


I was just looking at this picture and realized I was looking at a doe. So there is likely an orphaned fawn now. Maybe two or three. Bad luck all around.

IMG_6054.jpg

[elf]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Never been hit by one, but I've hit a couple. The year I lived in rural PA and drove across the mountains weekly to Penn State at night was an exercise in watchful driving. I learned to look for the reflection of my headlights in their eyes (and the eyes of other creatures as well) and hit the horn if I thought I saw an animal in the road. From my father, 20 years earlier I had learned that the sound of the horn would break the spell of the eyes, and then it was a crap shoot which way the deer would choose to exit the road.

After a few encounters I concluded that the deer would generally go for the closest side of the road. Unfortunately that didn't apply to all animals.

I did lose a VW bug to the first one I encountered on the PA turnpike, unfortunately. That was pretty grim, since it bounced off the trunk (remember VW bug trunks were in the front of the car) and landed in the fast lane where a semi was bearing down upon it at top speed. Not pretty. Too many drivers after me did not have the weight of a semi trailer to protect them from the problem.

[Ian McColgin]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

It was a minus god knows what night, about 0200, and I was returning from Bethlehem to Franconia when a deer leapt over the snow embankment and landed on my Volvo's hood. She was rolled back through the windshield, over the steering wheel, and into my lap. She was thrashing about with four broken legs until I was able to get an 8'' knife off my seat belt and slit her throat to bleed her to a more merciful death.

Then, blood drenched all over my chest and lap and legs, I had to hike about a mile to a farm house, awaken the at first terrified occupants, and call the sheriff's.

I was told I could keep her to cook but the notion of meat so badly blood bruised did not appeal.

[Jim Bow]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

A friend was riding a dirtbike in Montana and an owl hit him in the chest and knocked him off the bike. He said that he and the owl sat there on the trail, staring at each other, trying to figure our WTF just happened. Then the owl flew away.

[Chip-skiff]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

I really don't understand why highway departments keep putting deer crossings on busy highways. you would think they would want to direct them to quiet, less trafficked roads.

Deer don't read signs. They were following migration routes and trails to forage and water long before there were millions of shiny, happy people with bikes, cars, etc.

[Jimmy W]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

I've never collided with a deer. I did have a screech owl fly into the side of my VW bug one night on the Natchez Trace. It didn't survive.

[SaltyD from BC]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Glad you're ok Tom.

I grew up in moose country and learned to watch like a hawk for them. I never hit one but had a lot of near misses, in my sister's little Tercel one "hit us" it was a glancing blow took off the mirror and broke some windows at highway speed. We were extremely lucky there.

I've never hit a deer either but have had many near misses. Here's the classic scenario, they're in the ditch or there abouts they hear you coming and evolution tells them to freeze but the noise gets too scary at the last second and they panic and bolt. They think their best chance is that big open space where they can run their fastest. Boom. I've seen the remains of this played out far too often as I worked in highway construction and maintenance and saw the aftermaths. I figure that and growing up in an area highly populated by moose has made me a warry scanner of the ditches all the time without even thinking about it. And now after all that bloviating I'll probably hit a deer tomorrow lol.

[Jfitzger]

Re: Have you ever been hit by a deer?

Deer don't read signs. They were following migration routes and trails to forage and water long before there were millions of shiny, happy people with bikes, cars, etc.

It was a joke based on a women who called in to a radio station talk show in North Dakota.

It's one of my favorite examples of how egocentric and tunnel visioned man has become. It's right up there with people trying to pet bison or get selfies with bears.