Occasionally followed by
Sheep: they’d much rather die in a group than survive as individuals.
Your experience exactly matches the behavior of pedestrians on shared bike paths during the recent COVID lockdown in Melbourne. Because of workplace shutdowns and restrictions on activities, there were a lot more people out walking on the paths. And across the paths, and pedestrians stands by the side of the path, friends stand wherever. Bicycle approaches. Pedestrian crosses the path, looks for friends, crosses the path again, changes mind, crosses again and stops in the middle of the path, in front of the by now very close bicycle.
Sheeple.
Off work for 2 days, bent smartphone, bent derailer, broken bottle holder…
Got my car back today, after about a month in the shop (COVID there as well as parts suppliers didn’t help). Well north of $10,000. (my insurance has a $500 deductible)
Replaced the hood, driver side front quarter panel, driver side door, headlight, windshield (cracked below the hood), some radar/sensor units (etc, etc) There was a mention about welding the radiator.
Brian
Not a deer story, but an insurance story. Insurance categories are odd. One night, on a rainy mountain road, I was following another car through all the curves. As I come around one curve, there’s a foot-tall boulder in the road that must have just fallen off of the cliff to the right. I hit the brakes but ended up with it jammed under the car. Messed up the steering.
Later, I’m describing it to the insurance adjuster and she asks, “was the boulder still moving?” Seems I have a smaller deductible if the boulder was still moving than if it had stopped.
I honestly couldn’t say one way or the other. It was dark and rainy. I was following the other car close enough that I was surprised that it had a chance to come down behind them. But I couldn’t say whether it was moving or not.
She decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. I appreciated that.
Sadly true, even for their smarter wild cousins. In 2018, at the top of a steep slope near the top of Shepherd Pass in the Sierra Nevada, I came across the carcasses of a dozen mule deer. There had been freakish weather in early winter and they were caught out in dangerous conditions at high elevation. The matriarch tried to cross a steep ice-covered snow slope, misjudged things and fell to her death. The herd are so attuned to following the experienced leader that they all followed her.
Did the adjuster give you any explanation for what on earth this was supposed to mean? All I can think is that maybe if a landslide actually happens to be in progress, rocks are falling down a mountainside hit you as you’re driving past, you’re entirely innocent; whereas if the landslide happened earlier, and you came around a corner too fast to avoid hitting a static obstacle in the road, you are partially at fault?
There was no question of fault. It was two different categories of collision. It was long ago, so I don’t remember the names.
Underlining mine.
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what other evidence you may have seen.
But ISTM you can only conclude that all the ones who died followed the matriarch. There may have been others who did not follow. Or who did follow but managed to not be fatally injured in the fall. Perhaps to wander off and die elsewhere, or perhaps to live to graze another season.
When you learn to drive in southeast Ohio, deer-automobile collisions are something you come to expect, as if that is the likely outcome during your drive! You pretty much know you’re going to do it at some point.
In my 15 years there as a licensed driver, I was in approximately 20 deer-related incidents and avoided many, many others. They happened on the Interstate. They happened on back roads. They happened within city limits. At 55 mph. At 5 mph. I almost hit 1 on my bicycle!
Insurance for this seems like the best idea ever!
Dang.
I know someone who lived in the mountains. She was driving on a twisty road when a deer jumped down from the cliff side of the road and landed on her roof, smashing it in.
The insurance adjuster took a shot at disbelieving it.