My wife and I often talk about the fact that I’m afraid of hitting a deer while driving. I’m not quite sure when or how I developed this fear since I spent most of my life living in LA, where such incidents aren’t common. I’m pretty certain, however, that deer are evil and plotting to eventually take over the world. Their road deaths, I suspect, are carefully planned suicide missions designed to take out key members of humanity. I strive to remain below their radar, and have thus far been successful.
For reasons I’ve never been able to understand, however, my wife thinks I’m just crazy. So I’m out to prove her wrong by developing conclusive statistics. Since the SDMB is composed of above-average individuals (and thus, people more likely to be targeted by the deer), I want to conduct a poll to find out how many of you have already been victimized.
Feel free to post below about your narrow escapes from death-by-deer, or from any of the other woodland creatures with whom they are likely conspiring. A very simple poll to follow.
I’ve never hit a deer although it’s been relatively close a few times. I know many people that have hit deer and moose, and a good friend was killed last month in a car/moose collision.
What’s even crazier is the fact that several jurisdictions have even designated places for the deer to cross major highways with those Deer Crossing zones. It would be much safer if they wouldn’t let them cross in these high traffic areas.
And no, I’ve never hit a deer. I’ve seen several run across the road in front of me or on the shoulders, but I’ve avoided hitting one.
I was a passenger in a car when a deer jumped out in front of it. The driver hit the brakes, causing me to fly forward, spill coffee on my one good hand, go backward and end up with a grapefruit sized bruise on the back of my thigh.
I lived in deer country for 20 years. I had exactly one collision: the ignorant giant rat ran headlong into the side of my Bronco as I drove by.
I never feared hitting them exactly. I had decided long ago that the correct response to a deer ahead was to drive on without braking. Far more people injure themselves by maneuvering badly to avoid deer than are injured by colliding with one solidly. I’m not anti-deer, but I would happily slaughter a hundred of them in preference to injuring even one human.
Had I lived in moose country I would have thought differently about ramming the critters. Or maybe bought a Kenworth for a daily driver.
If, like the OP or me now, you don’t live in deer country then worrying about it IMO is pretty silly. Just decide in advance not to swerve and get on with your deer-free life.
A deer ate out of the hands of my neighbour’s young children, and was the matriarch of a small herd.
It ran into the front fender of my vehicle, then bounced on the front grille, and ran off into the woods. Five or six grand in damage to the vehicle.
A couple of days later, the kid’s dog dragged a deer haunch home.
The kids were distraught.
Their father tried to turn their tragedy into a valuable lesson by telling them that they must be careful to look for cars when they walk on the road. (We usually have several cars on our road each day.)
The little girl understood the lesson.
The little boy misunderstood it to mean that he must watch out for me because I would be trying to run him down. He was scared of me for a couple of months.
There are deer in LA. I saw a beautiful one not ten feet from Sunset Blvd at Will Rogers St Park. Like rain, I doubt LA drivers could handle wildlife either. Bicyclists are bad enough.
The biggest danger with hitting a deer is if they’re to jump, which of course they often do, thus putting their bulk around windshield-high. That same danger of an elevated torso applies to moose and horses as they can come right over the hood and bring enormous mass through the passenger compartment, much more so that if someone were to hit a hog for example.
A guy I worked with years ago was driving his P.U. along a winding mountain road in a heavy rain and hit a buffalo. It destroyed his truck and hurt the animal bad enough it had to be put down. He said he heard its partner on the run crashing through the brush for some time after.
I’ve never hit anything but in deer country an hour before dark I sure slow down, they’re on the move. Same early in the am before dawn.
In rural Wisconsin I’d think the hit rate was close to 100%, or so it seemed. If you drive at night at all, near misses are inevitable (except during gun season - they all disappear. They KNOW, man!).
I’ve only hit one, but that was all it took to pay more attention, and to avoid a lot more. You start knowing how they think, where they cross, where the common crossings are.
This was a common occurrence at our farm after bed time: you can hear the car coming, then you hear the horn, then you hear the tire squeal, then about 5 minutes later you hear the knock on the door: “Can we use your phone?”.
We lived just around the corner form the “deer dump”, where the DNR took the carcasses. You could NOT touch a dead one - only the DNR. I guess they were afraid of “car poaching”. They relaxed that later. You could keep it if you wanted.
I’ve seen tons of deer and had some close calls but never hit one. You should ask instead: do you know someone who hit a deer? I bet every single person says yes. I know at least three, and one whose marriage ended over it (the husband did not believe it was an accident and insisted the wife had aimed for the deer. The lack of trust and evident contempt was already there, this was just the last straw.)
I’ve hit one. I’ve had numerous close calls. I even had one try to hit me. His antlers were leveled at the driver’s side window at a full run a couple feet away as I sped past. I was very surprised he didn’t hit the car further back in that instance. I’d be surprised if I wasn’t in to triple digits if you include incidents where the deer entered, or were standing in, the road but the call wasn’t close.
I don’t live in LA though. I’ve lived in the Midwest most of my life. I’ve probably seen hundreds of deer near the road. I hit a grand total of one.
A couple of years ago I locked up my brakes and skidded to a stop in just enough time to tap a deer on the leg. There is a small crack in my bumper about a half inch in length. I’ve come very close on other occasions but this was my one and only contact.
Supposedly in WI, 1 in every six traffic accidents involves a deer. Hard to believe. In 20+ years here, I’ve only seen live deer by the roadside a couple of times.
I’ve personally hit 3 deer, the last one being about 2 weeks ago, totaling my car in the process. Sucker came out of the deep woods on my left, hit the front of the car, then flew up and came into my car via smashing the rear window completely.
The explosive nature of his entrance convinced my reptile brain that the car was about to explode, so I bailed, grabbing only my iPod and cell phone, as I didn’t want to lose my music collection nor walk two miles for a phone at the nearest house.
The deer, a huge buck with a large rack, lay in and out of my car for a minute, then got up and staggered into the woods. Jerk.
I’ve also been a passenger in 3 cars that hit deer.
I see dead deer by the road every fricking day. I see live deer more days than not, often as many as two dozen at a time. Where the hell do you live in WI?
I hit a deer and totalled my Saturn in 2002. I grazed one a couple of years later. My commute is through farm country where they are very common. I have become very vigilant since then.
Oh, and I can’t count the number of near misses I’ve had, where slamming on the brakes averts a disaster. Nor the times I’ve sat still in the middle of the road as the damn deer stares at me, and refuses to budge.
I do not swerve for deer. I’ll try to stop, but I’m NOT risking my neck to spare theirs.
Wish those stupid deer whistles/sirens/lights worked.
Remember, I’m trying to prove the theory that the deer are targeting selectively, which is why I’m seeking specifically the responses of Dopers’ direct experiences.
I’m pretty sure my marriage would end over my wife’s mockery of me following what I’m sure would be my incessant cries of “See?!? I TOLD you!!!” following such an incident.