Deer in the headlights

[seldedr]

I've recently started a new phobia for myself... I'm deathly (no pun intended) afraid of hitting a deer on the highway. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Is there a name for it?

More importantly, is there a good way to prevent a deer-auto accident?

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[Momotaro]

A deer? Never met a moose on the highway, have you? To avoid deer-auto collisions don't drive. :)

Sorry, now for a serious answer. I don't see how you can avoid the risk of animal collision. All I can say is avoid panicking if it happens to you. You see a dear, slow down, don't break, you might get rear-ended by another car, which could be worse. Your better off hitting a deer than plunging into a ditch, so don't do extreme maneuvers either. Save yourself first, the car, second.

Deer aren't that big. On the other hand, a moose will decapitate you if you hit it with a car....

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Only humans commit inhuman acts.

[Cap'n Crude]

There are inexpensive plastic whistle kits for keeping deer away from moving vehicles. You mount them on your car/truck/whatever, and the wind blowing through them creates a loud and annoying sound beyond human hearing range. This sound supposedly scares the deer off.

Do these things work? I have no idea. The theory is plausible enough. You'd be giving up an awful lot of free venison, though.

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--Da Cap'n

[tomndebb]

The absolutely most important thing to remember in order to avoid hitting a deer:

If you brake in time to miss the first one, don't start up until you've watched the rest of them cross the road.

Deer generally do not travel singly. I have seen one or two accidents where someone hit the lead deer. However, I know far more people who hit the gas when the "the" deer got across--and took out the second deer.

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Tom~

[Ringo]

Tom is, as always, right on. But I think Momo gave the best advice for conducting your life at night while on the streets:

You see a dear, slow down

[seldedr]

I did some research, and it seems that most experts have concluded that the whistles don't work at all. Deer apparently have hearing ranges similar to those of humans, and what is supersonically inaudible to us (the 'scientific principle') is also inaudible to deer.

The advice on deer in packs is truly 'straight dope.' Every source I checked concurred.

I might also note that deer are most active (and thus more likely to be travelling across highways) at dusk and dawn, and especially during their mating season (Nov.-Jan.) and rutting season (spring).

[hey you]

I have this paranoia also.
Once I bought a set of those deer whistles. I didn't read the package thoroughly until later. Apparently they worked by making the deer 'curious' about the sound they make, the deer then stand still trying to figure it out, and you can safely drive around them.
I think I threw them away.

[HeyHomie]

I, too, have seldedr's phobia of hitting a deer with my car. I'm VERY nervous driving on 2-lane roads at night. AFAIAK, there's really nothing practical that can be done about it. Just be cautious, and take extra care during the fall and winter, especially on 2-lane roads.

As for the name of this phobia, I suggest "showmephobia," Missouri being the "Show-me" state and having plenty of deer to run over. And there was an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a while back about Conservation Dept. officials re-introducing ELK(!) to Missouri. As if there aren't enough critters to run over in these parts.

If you want a serious answer for the name of your phobia, I suggest consulting a Greek dictionary. Look up the word for "deer" + "collision" and add "-phobia" and you've got it.

[Gaudere]

If it's any comfort, my brother has hit three deer (at three different times) with the same car. He never had any injuries, although his car barely ran after deer #3. Some person would always stop their car to carve up my brother's "kill". It's a pity he never hit a buck, or he could have mounted the antlers on his front fender. I've nearly hit two deer, myself.

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"Eppur, si muove!" - Galileo Galilei

[John Bredin]

If you have a fear of hitting a deer, you DON'T want to drive on Higgins Road between Arlington Heights Road and the I290 overpass! For those not from Chicago, that's a main east-west road in the northwest suburbs. Due west of the aforementioned overpass is Woodfield Mall, second-largest shopping center in the US, IIRC.

Anyhoo, that stretch of Higgins runs through the middle of the Cook County Forest Preserves -- lots of deer on both sides of the road, and the fact that the neighboring community is Elk Grove Village should tell you something. The posted speed limit is 50mph, which means of course that traffic is actually going about 60mph. Some drivers are in a big hurry because they're late for work; the area around Woodfield is filled with office buildings. The trees and brush grow almost up to the roadway in some places, and the road makes a big curve so that you can't always see that far ahead. That stretch of Higgins is Deer-kill Central!

[Lumpy]

Your better off hitting a deer than plunging into a ditch, so don't do extreme maneuvers either. Save yourself first, the car, second.
Deer aren't that big. On the other hand, a moose will decapitate you if you hit it with a car....Hey, I drive a Geo Metro, I'd be afraid to collide with a large dog!

[Diceman]

Lumpy: count your blessings. You could drive a Geo Tracker (also sold under the name "golf cart").

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

[Fyodor]

Us Canadians have a lot of experience with wildlife on the road. Those whistles are useless. Two main points:
(1) Don't drive so fast that you exceed the range of your headlights at night.
(2) If you see a critter slow right down. They don't understand vehicles and are just as likely to run in front of your car as away. They will also "deak" - start running in one direction and do a 180 flip right back in front of you.
I had a deer run out of the ditch into the side of my car in broad daylight. One of my buddies ended up with a moose's ass in his face.

[sunbear]

We have a name:
seldedr's phobia

[Rysdad]

The volume of deer/vehicle interaction in northern Minnesota spawned a variation on an old joke.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: Just to prove to the deer that it could be done.

[Shirley Ujest]

Don't you know that you are suppose to stop at the Deer Xing signs and wait for the little fellers to cross in an orderly fashion?

[BoBettie]

I hate to add to your phobia, but I don't blame you- I smacked a deer in my Chevy Cavalier 2 door (it was a pretty big car)- it smashed in the whole front end, bent the door so I couldn't get out and I ended up in the hospital (I hit it doing about 55 in the absolute pitch dark). Bad scene. Now no matter WHAT the speed limit is, I go way slower on two lane roads just in case.
I am paranoid about highways, too but I've never had one run out there in front of me.

My husband had one come out in front of his motorcycle once and had just barely enough time to stop.

So anyway, just drive careful and realize you can't control everything, least of all these friggin' deer. I don't care who flames me, I pray for good hunting seasons every year so I don't hit another one and get myself killed this time.

Just a little ray of sunshine for you :)

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Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/zettecity/index.html

[Kaje]

cervus is latin for deer. offensio is latin for hitting against. So might one make the conjecture that cervusoffensiophobia (or possibly offensiocervusphobia, I'm no latin grammar expert) would be the fear of hitting a deer?

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The only thing a nonconformist hates more than a conformist is another nonconformist who does not conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity.

[NanoByte]

Would cervovehiculocollidophobia work? Might also be a suitable entry in that thread on long words.

I've never hit a deer or had one hit me. Don't recall any that came really close either, but I have, of course, had them cross , or start to cross, quickly in front of my car.

Don't try it with a fast bicycle either. I recall reading of one, a couple decades ago, hitting a deer on Willow Road, Stanford, CA-US. Instant kill of the rider. Don't recall how the deer made out.

I got called a mountain goat once when I gamboled across a road not too far in front of a car.

Ray (Deer me.)

[Whammo]

I understand that if you have time (i.e. a deer in the road ahead of you) if you flash your lights it will run away. I believe this. I myself have never hit a deer but two almost hit me!! and I was traveling almost 70 miles an hour... the dear were sprinting across the interstate and came inches from hitting the side of my car..... had I been going even a slight bit slower they would have hit ME!

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"Boy, wouldja get a load of the cloaca on that one"? -Cecil Adams "october 8 1999"

[Harmonious Discord]

We have plenty of deer kills in my area. There is one area where I have counted about 150 deer at one time in the fields, during the fall after the corn is picked. This was done from the road in one spot.

Where I live you have turkeys and Sandhill cranes to contend with.

The turkeys will walk and then run down the road for a hundred feet before they get off it. Your looking at about 15 to 25 at a time in front of you car.

The cranes just stand in the road and don't move. You can drive by them in the other car lane, and they don't take off.

Both make short work of your cars front end when you crest a hill or round that curve and there they are.

[Temujin]

More importantly, is there a good way to prevent a deer-auto accident?I don't think there's any way to prevent them. Sometimes the deer just run out onto the road from behind the trees, and there's no time to stop. But in my experience, it is possible to reduce your chances of hitting a deer.

At night, you can usually spot the deer's eyes from far away, because of the reflection from your headlights. If you constantly look far down the road, you can usually spot a deer's eyes long before you can see the actual deer.

I've had several near misses on Wisconsin's highways. I guess I've been lucky, because I've almost always been able to screech to a halt or swerve around them.

The one time I hit a deer, it was nighttime, there was a pickup truck right behind me with its high beams on, and another car approaching in the oncoming lane with ITS high beams on. I couldn't see a thing, but when I heard the BANG, I figured it was a deer. It could just as easily have been a person, for all I knew.

The impact dislodged my front passenger-side headlight and caused about $600 damage. I was able to drive to the sheriff's office, where I reported the accident. The officer on duty asked if I wanted to keep the carcass. Evidently a lot of people in Wisconsin use their road-killed deer for meat.

[Harmonious Discord]

Temujin, I would like to point out I live in the middle of Wisconsin. The dear are so dense that the DNR has had special hunting for the last couple years to try and reduce their population. You see deer carcasses on the road everyday.

[Harmonious Discord]

Please change dear to deer in the above post. I knew this was going to happen. The other dears in Wisconsin are not so dense.

[Temujin]

Temujin, I would like to point out I live in the middle of Wisconsin. The deer are so dense that the DNR has had special hunting for the last couple years to try and reduce their population. You see deer carcasses on the road everyday.It must be worse now than it was when I lived there back in the '80s. As I recall, Montello is a nice town. With a waterfall near the highway, right? Any way, I hope you've been able to avoid the deer.

[Harmonious Discord]

I live between Portage and Montello with wildlife refuges all over the area. John Muir's boyhood home is about 2 miles down the road.

The deer have become a big problem in the last 5 or so years. I've seen palaces where they've cropped down all the young trees and under growth in the woods.

[Momotaro]

You would think deers would have figured they should look carefully each side of a road before crossing. I mean, they don't even have to turn their heads to do that, for crying out loud.

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Only humans commit inhuman acts.

[astorian]

Here in Austin TX, deer are everywhere. I've been fortunate enough never to hit one, or even to come close, but loads of my friends have.

The deer population has exploded in suburban neighborhoods all over America. Some environmentalist-minded folks like to say "The deer were here first," but in fact, humans have HELPED the deer population explode! Indeed, human development has made many areas MORE attractive for deer.

After all, when humans move into what USED to be forest land, the first thing they do is drive out all the dangerous predators. The NEXT thing they do is start planting lawns and gardens, filled with yummy grass and tasty flowers. And THEN, they water that grass and those flowers all year long.

In essence, humans are rolling out the red carpet for Bambi! We're practically BEGGING them to move into our back yards! "Here, little deer! We've gotten rid of all your enemies, and laid out a year-round smorgasbord for you." From the deer's point of view, Austin (or Westchester or suburban Chicago or...) beats the hell out of the forest ANY day! A few auto accidents are a small price to pay for the good life, from the deer's perspective.

[seldedr]

I read the other day when researching this that in Iowa (where I live), deer numbered less than 1,000 in the 1940s. Hunting of white-tailed deer was outlawed by the state, and wasn't allowed to begin again until the mid-1950s.

Today, Iowa's deer population is estimated at well over 200,000 and nearly every city and town in Iowa is debating whether or not to allow hunting within its city limits.

In other strange animal-related statistical news, there are five pigs for every man, woman and child in Iowa. These however, are kept penned up in hog confinement lots and aren't allowed out, so they pose no threat to motorists. Circulatory systems, on the other hand...

[Missy2U]

Tem, a lot of people in Illinois do too.

Someone just told me there are special times here in IL where bow hunters can hunt in the forest preserves, with special state licenses, to help control the deer population. (What the heck are we supposed to DO? Build the damn things public housing???) Ain't gonna claim this is fact, just that I was told this. By a bow hunter. Who claims to have done it.

[Harmonious Discord]

This morning was cloudy and pitch dark. I got onto a bridge and saw deer right in front of me. I came to a stop in the middle of a herd of deer on the bridge.

Living where I do, I've leaned never leave anything on the seats not belted down, or under the drivers seat. Anything on the drivers seat ends up under your foot pedals. Anything not belted to the seat hits the dash.

[Akatsukami]

Shirley Ujest writes:Don't you know that you are suppose to stop at the Deer Xing signs and wait for the little fellers to cross in an orderly fashion?
But, Shirley, how do the deer know that they're supposed to cross at those signs? Aren't they illiterate?


On a somewhat more serious note, I live in a fairly civilized suburb, where one is unlikely to see deer (locally known as "rats with hooves") more often than once every couple of weeks. Drive ten miles into the backbeyond, however, and one is in a different world. I am told that a popular after-market mod to pickup trucks there is to remove the front bumper and tie on a 6x6 in its place. This apparently reduces the amount of damage that the truck takes when it hits a deer. The amount of damage that the deer suffers, however, remains the same ("Honest, Officer, that deer leaped into the road only...ummm...three or four miles in front of me, and I just couldn't stop. By the way, can I take the carcass home and butcher it?")

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"Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away."

[BoBettie]

Here in Upstate NY, many of our trucks are equipped with a "push bar"..a set of bars (looks like a rack) to go on the front of the truck- saves you from a huge amount of damage...
By the way, I just took my dogs out to run, and there were 4 deer in my backyard hanging out. We are overrun!!
(we also have loads of turkeys in our yard)

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Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/zettecity/index.html

[BoBettie]

I also forgot..when you hit a deer around here, the cops will give you a special tag to take to the butcher so you can keep the meat (yum).
No thank you! Something about road kill that doesn't appeal to me. Very Beverly Hillbillies.

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Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/zettecity/index.html

[Diceman]

They do that in Michigan, too. Call the Michigan DNR and they'll give you a special hunting tag or somesuch. I've never, ever hunted, but if I'm ever unfortunate enough to "automotively process" one of our national resources/nusances, I just might get one.

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

[Cardinal]

See, what you all have to do is move to a former desert, where there's not enough water to support large animals like that, and then irrigate your yuppie lawns with water gotten from well upstate, and then you won't have these problems. No, L.A. has too many immigrants anyway. Of course, being one might reduce my ability to gripe about that.

What we have, living on the northern edge of Orange County, are coyotes that often get themselves into howling choruses at night. I'v seen them running down the road at night a few times now. At least they wouldn't wreck a car if you hit them. And they're too timid to be dangerous, unless you're a cat exploring the hills or something tasty like that.

[ignatiusjreilly]

Hitting a deer is no big deal - just keep driving and slow down in a controlled manner. Your car might be trashed, but you're going to be physically OK in nearly every case. (Think about the mass of a deer and then think about the mass of the oncoming car that inspired your car's safety features.

People get hurt when they get swerve and lose control of the car and collide with another, more massive, object, or roll their car into the ditch.

In West Texas, a big problem is running into vultures ("turkey buzzards" down here) as they sit in the middle of the road picking on the roadkill from the night before. See, the deer will usually stay at or below the level of your bumper. These birds will get high enough to come through your windshield, which just happens to slice open their stomachs and cause a big nasty smelly mess in your car. Happened to my dad twice and it was not a pretty experience.

[smilingjaws]

Hey,
I hit a buzzard myself--I was lucky it didn't come through the windshield!

I travel a lot at night and slow down. When I started looking at the sides of the road I started seeing deer EVERYWHERE!
We need long doe seasons to control the population! Killing just the bucks doesn't help much.

[typertrphy]

I'm with B_Line12. I have a Green Emergency light on the roof of my van ( NYS uses green for EMS volunteers)> GOD they get spooked by it ! I've used it just a few times, when I've seen them ahead.

Typer

[CatInHat]

Many years ago, I was working out in Colorado, which is antelope country. The place I worked was located at the end of a long, deserted road. It was also government property, so there was no hunting, and the antelope had figured this out. One of the guys I worked with left work Sunday morning (at the end of the graveyard shift) after a major snowfall and freeze. The road hadn't been cleared.

Well, he was driving home at about 20 mph (on glare ice), and a herd of antelope trotted out in front of him. He ended up hitting about 8 of them before he could stop. It was (according to witnesses) absolute carnage. The game commission had to send someone out to put them out of their misery.

We were all really careful after that.

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The Cat In The Hat

[Diceman]

CatInHat: What does your friend drive? A Semi? An M1A1 Abrams main battle tank? How did he hit eight antelope in one fell swoop?

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island