Stupid white tailed deer....

The BBQ Pit
1

In the past three days, I’ve had three close calls with white tailed deer with suicidal tendencies, the first one actually trying to occupy the same physical space as my car…

In each case, I was driving on a 2 lane back road, doing the speed limit (or slightly below, due to the prevalence of suicidal deer) and the pattern of behavior was identical each time

Incident one; 25 MPH, On the road leading to home, late at night, around 9 PM, two deer cross the road far enough ahead for me to see them and slow to around 20, around here they seem to travel in groups of three, as I approach the crossing, I slow to 15, when the THIRD deer leaps out no less than 10 feet from my front bumper, I jam on the brakes, and hear a faint thump and the deer goes down near the left front quarter panel, it then stumbles a bit, gets up and runs back the way it came, I pull over to check for damage, a piece of trim has popped out of the bumper skin, I pop it back in, test it to insure its held solidly (it is) and find no other damage, good, stupid deer…

Deer; 0, Rabbit; 1

Incident two; similar to incident one, but no vehicular contact, as I was wise to this latest suicidal technique…

Incident three; coming around a corner on a snowy, slushy ice covered road, at dusk, fading light in the sky, deer 1 had just crossed the road, deer 2 is at the apex of the corner, struggling for grip, trying to get out of the path of my car, deer 3 looks my way, puts one leg on the side of the road, I fix it with a steely, hate filled glare, and it stops dead, and waits till I pass (I think revving the engine at that point may have also helped…)

This has been the worst season for deer crossing interactions yet, I think part of the problem is a lack of hunting in our area, so the population is exploding, this summer, I counted easily 15 deer on our 50 acre property, which is not fenced, there are other lightly wooded lots around our house, as our road is sparsely populated and a lot of people have a good amount of land, it’s deer heaven…

Without hunters to manage the population, the amount of deer-car incidents is increasing…

Stupid deer, stop trying to commit suicide-by-vehicle, your making me want to pick up a hunting rifle and turn you into tasty, tasty venison…

…and considering the deer on our property are used to human activity, to the point that they will not react to me slapping a magazine into my AR and racking the charging handle (I did this to see if they would react, nope, they just looked quizzically in my direction, not scared by the mechanical noises, heck, I’ve seen them watch me plink at kinetic targets with my .22’s on my backyard range, they really do not see people and firearms as dangerous, pretty stupid on their part… Plus, there’s that whole deer tick/Lyme disease thing, Cooper (my dog) had to be treated for Lyme, and we lost dad last year to Chronic Lyme …

Yep, starting to lean more towards becoming a licensed Hunter here…
…stupid deer, enjoy not being hunted while it lasts, next season I may be afield gunning for you…
Mmmm…venison

Just stay off the roads, stay away from my car, and I won’t have to hunt you, deal?

2

Out here, the tails are black and the deer use crosswalks in our cute little seaside Victorian Port. No hunting allowed, and people FEED them!! Seriously. Out of town, though, same deal. Though there are lots of hunters. I killed a nice little 4 pt buck with my old Volvo a couple of years ago, totaled the car. My SIL asked if I loaded the buck- I was too rattled. By the time he got to the scene someone else had picked him up.
I now keep my phone on a charger :slight_smile:

3

Giant rodents are what I call them.

I’ve bought one brand new truck in my life. 4 houses away from my own driveway a fucking deer ran out from between the houses into the road.

Blammo, destroyed the whole front end. Didn’t even make the first payment yet.

4

Deer are so thick within a half mile of my house that I hesitate to go faster than 25 mph until I get out of that area. I’ve seen as many as 25 at a time just in one of my back fields, one day after hunting season ended!.

[sub]I once hit a deer in my pajamas. No, really, I was in my pajamas.[/sub]

5

Yes, deer have exactly the herd thinning strategies you have described here on the West Coast. I have clipped one myself, and seen a few accidents.

They wait in a cluster by the side of the road, in the trees or brush, then bolt. That group is usually far enough ahead of your car that you avoid them. If you’re not familiar with their tricks, you might then start proceeding at a normal pace again, thinking “whew, missed’em”. That’s when the last few sacrifices burst headlong from the side, trying to catch up with rest of their friends.

I always wait an extra beat or two now, then proceed slowly. Nothing like a deer through the windshield to fuck up your night.

6

Just remember to hit the damned things, and not swerve! Swerving causes more and worse human injury than just plowing into them. Brake if you’re able, but don’t swerve!!

But swerve for moose, as most cars aren’t built to handle a moose head-on.

7

Cleveland has a ring of parks around the edge of Cuyahoga county where they breed in order to spread their suicidal urges through out the suburbs. In fact, it is more dangerous to drive through the suburbs than out in the country where the hunters keep down the population.
We have had over twenty in our back yard, nibbling on our crabapple tree–and the houses are on 150’ frontage lots.

8

yeah don’t swerve or brake so that you loose control. other cars, trees or the ditch will damage you and your car much more.

deer can stop at the roads edge acting like they see you. then jump out when you are feet away.

deer can run out of the road and on then onto shoulder or ditch only to run into the road as you approach.

if you see deer you need to slow so you can always take evasive until you have passed the whole group of them (deer are social and defend themselves by being in groups).

9

The closest I’ve ever come to hitting a deer was actually in the middle of the day. I was driving home from work to eat lunch and a deer just jumped out from nowhere and crossed the street. I occasionally see deer in the area (one night a whole group was eating the nearby school’s athletic fields) but that was the closest since moving here.

I once had to stop and wait for antelope to get off the road driving down US-285 in New Mexico somewhere between Clines Corners and Roswell.

10

Fortunately Wisconsin has struck a deal with our deer. On our highways we have designated deer crossing zones denoted by yellow signs saying “Deer Crossing Next 5 miles”. Outside of those areas, we don’t have to worry. :slight_smile:

11

Not during, I bet. They have calendars.

Followed five miles later by another “Deer Crossing Next 5 miles” sign. And that one is in downtown Madison.

If it makes the OP happier, I hear mule deer are even stupider. As he tells it, one was hiding behind a tree so my brother walked around the tree to get a clean shot.

12

In Florida wild hogs are as big a danger as the deer. And you can hunt a hog any time of day or night (they are a plague upon the earth here), but this doesn’t stop them from committing suicide by car. What is needed is shooting them FROM a vehicle, so they learn to fear cars.

Sadly that behavior is actually against the law.

(my brother in law has totaled two cars hitting deer)

13

We ought to figure out how to get deer and hogs pissed off at one another.

14

Or we could just import some wolves …

15

Your deer can read? :eek:

16

Not sure. It’s possible that they recognize the shape or color of the signs. Clearly, though, they can talk, or they never could have struck a deal.

17

We live in the middle of a forest preserve that is thick with deer. On the weekends tourists flock to the place, where they feed and photograph the damned things so extensively that the deer have become nearly tame. I have walked down the six-foot-wide paved trail and had to change my course because a deer was standing in the middle of it and wouldn’t move.

And there’s the one damned set of neighbors who feed them all winter. Grrrr.

18

I was driving highway 166 from Bakersfield to Maricopa and I saw a shape moving in the field on my left. So I began to slow down. As the shape got closer it turned into a deer and I continued to slow since there were cars coming down the highway in the opposite direction and car in front and behind me. The deer never slowed down as it ran between two cars heading the opposite direction and T-boned the truck in front of me it spun around and broke the taillight of the truck before continuing to run off on the right side of the road. I didn’t get a good look at the damage as the truck pulled over but that is the dumbest deer I’ve ever seen.

19

There were roads in Utah where you couldn’t drive at night, due to the deer. A friend remarked he would like to sue the Fish and Game Department for improper management of the herds. I always wondered if that would help.

20

OMG! The deer have established no-go zones! Government cannot control those areas, leaving American citizens helpless within them, just like France and England.