I don’t drive, so obviously I have never hit one.
But I’ve also never been a passenger in a car that hit any kind of animal. Well, there was this one squirrel twenty years ago that we’re not sure about, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t hit him.
I hit a raccoon once. My Smart Car was totaled.
I voted other
I live in a deer filled area. I too believe deer are out to get me. Three times in the past 10 years dead deer have been on the side of the road on my lawn*. One deer tried very hard to get me to hit it; but it just tapped my hood with its hoof as it leaped at my car. I have lost count of the number of narrow misses.
*obviously those three were looking for me
I clicked ‘hit a deer once’, which is true, but wanted to add that my wife has hit one too.
And both times, there was another deer right there.
Hit one about 12 years ago (note to deer: do not jump out of the woods on a dark road at 5AM); did enough damage that they had to come out and put it down (the deer, not the car; car cost me $1125 to fix).
Otherwise, 1 Raccoon and 3 Squirrels confirmed and two snakes and a box turtle probables. For nearly 50 years of driving, I’d say that is average.
I’ve never hit a deer, but when I lived in NJ and drove home through wooded areas in the dark I’ve come close, and I know plenty of people who have hit them. And one who almost did - but the deer jumped over his car.
And my office mate in grad school and her husband were driving in rural Texas one night when they came upon a truck stopped in the middle of the road. Zoom they went around it - and slammed into a dying cow in the road. Which was no longer dying when they got through with it. It was dead. And so was the car. And they had to buy a cow.
While riving in the fog, I ran over a family of raccoons. 
In that case, you probably don’t want to watch this scene of a deer attack on innocent drivers from The Ring 2. I’m pretty sure it was a documentary.
I hit a deer on the freeway in the middle of the night. It completely vaporized (I couldn’t locate the body, other than the various bits that were stuck in the front of my car) but somehow I emerged completely unscathed. Car was beyond repair, of course.
This was before cell phones (or at least before I had a cell phone) so I had to hitch a ride to a phone in order to get a tow truck-- luckily the guy who stopped was incredibly pleasant and helpful and not a serial killer.
That’s one of the mysteries of science at this time, and it’s growing problem in my province and already a very serious problem across the border in Minnesota.
I was the passenger in a car my dad was driving when a buck leapt onto the highway in front of our car. It was about 6:30 in the morning. Killed the buck and destroyed the front end of the car.
I never hit a deer, and I grew up in 'Sconsin.
There are lots of deer where I live now, but somehow they have avoided me. I spot them when I am walking the dog sometimes, or rather Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup] spots them. And sometimes there are dead deer next to the main road near my house.
I guess I’ve been lucky - I am not that good a driver.
Regards,
Shodan
Point Pelee National Park has a turtle crossing sign, which my friend who was driving read out loud as we passed by it at night. Unfortunately, while we were looking at the sign, he ran over a turtle.
That seems pointless - turtles can’t read.
Regards,
Shodan
I drive from Austin to west Texas an average of twice a year in the fall/winter. I hate deer. Freaking highway rats. One Thanksgiving, my brother and I counted 47 deer carcasses on that 350 mile stretch. I won’t drive the stretch of two lane highway 71 between the 281 cutoff and Pontotoc (pon-TEE-tock) at night. I hate playing Dodge Deer.
Daytime’s better, but then you’ve got the turkey vultures giving you side eye while they eat the dead things by the side of the road. Those are some truly nasty birds. Not a place where I’d want to get a flat.
I have and will probably will do so again commuting through the Baltimore burbs where they are plentiful and weird shit happens (I frequently travel this road).
this is one thing to keep in mind- if you see one deer cross the road, you can bet there will be more right behind it.
I hit a deer once. I didn’t see it coming because I was distracted by a couple of other deer which were crossing further ahead of me, and didn’t realize that another deer would be lagging behind and closer to me and would leap right in front of my car. It seems that deer get pretty zoned in to whatever they’re focused on and don’t pay attention to the fact that Something Big is about to cross paths with them.
[On a possibly related note, I’ve seen video of migrating herds of zebras and wildebeests crossing the Mara River and they don’t seem to pay much attention to crocodiles coming at them from the side.]
I kept on going and don’t know what happened to the deer. It got a pretty hard whack (& left a small dent and some fur on my car) but when I drove home from work I did not see a dead deer anywhere. I assume it limped off and slowly died in the forest. 
In the name of science, and because I’m bored at the moment, I just did a survey in my office. Nine out of ten people here have either hit a deer or been a passenger when it happened, with six having multiple incidents. Girl #10 was in shock when she found this out, she just moved here last year from down south. This is in rural northern Canada, where there are more deer per square km than people. I feel I can confidently say the OP is right, deer are evil creatures with a really good PR team.
I’ve hit two myself, one of which jumped in front of and ended up totalled my first car. I replaced the car with a nice big pick-up and suicidal deer #2 just bounced off. I thought I was invincible … then I hit a moose, which totalled my pickup, broke my leg, and then walked away from the accident like a boss. Seriously, don’t f*** with a moose.
I’ve noticed that more and more semi trucks in the US are now sporting “roo bars”, those oversized cab protecting tube bumpers that the Aussies created, except down there it’s kangaroos they’re punting aside. These never seemed to catch on in the US until recently, despite the thousands of deer smushed over the past decades.
