Ever Hit a Deer?

Oh, I believe someone mentioned a cow earlier. Cows, horses, those bastards seem to easily escape fences and loiter in the road. And try to avoid hitting a coon or possum at 70 miles per hour.

 

I've passed someone that hit a cow while i was on the way home. I think I ran over his radiator. I stopped to turn around and see if the guy needed help. The cow was still alive, unfortunately, both its front legs were broken. I let the guy use my cell phone to call the police and the guy whose pasture the cow had escaped from (police had it apparently).

But as far as deer. Nope. I do have a personal collision story though. One of the sickest nights of my life.

 

I hit a deer last October going from cross country meet to the office. Broad daylight, early afternoon, state highway. I was coming around a slight bend to the right and boom, hit a 12-point buck with the front passenger side.
Deer goes tumbling down an embankment, broken leg and neck.
Car continues to run fine, and I coast to a stop about a hundred yards down the road with car parts raining down on me part of the way.
Wound up having to replace the headlight and get a few dings repaired on the car, with insurance paying for it.

 

^^^That was just the latest of my car-and-animal sagas.
I've hit opposums, raccoons, a large bird (either a buzzard or a turkey) and possibly a dog (to this day I don't know what it was, only that it was white, fluffy and moving like blur late at night when it dashed under my wheels on the highway).
A near miss includes a hog on its way to market (I wound up driving a deputy's patrol car that day), while a loose calf led to me being chased on foot by three domesticated turkeys and a dog biting through the sidewall of one of my tires.

 

Listen to 21. Just hold on tight and keep driving, slowing down if possible. Going out of control will make things much worse. I don't live in deer country, but I drilled a 5-foot-tall seabird one night on my way home. He never saw it coming.

 

I had just bought a 1962 Buick Special in 1998. I live out in farm country, and was driving it THREE HOURS after I registered it. Doing 35 on a small country road and a deer comes out. I couldn't do anything but slam on the brakes (which instantly locked up, of course) and hit him square. I just remember the legs going up in the air as I plowed into it.

Deer was gone. The car? Well, since they actually used steel back then, all I had was a 4x4 hole in the grille from the antlers and one of my high beams was pointed into the trees. That's it. No scratch, no dent, nothing. Bought a new grille and fixed the headlight, and you'd never know I hit one.

I love that car. But after that episode, I figured I better get lap belts (seat belts were an option back then, and my car didn't have them).

Sadly, a friend of mine was riding a Vespa scooter when a deer jumped in front of him at 11 a.m. on a Sunday and crashed into the scooter. He wasn't wearing a helmet, and died three days later.

 

Damn, I feel like the John Wayne Gacy of the Bambi crowd. 13 lifetime kills, never swerved once. Used to drive home late at night every night on a hilly back country road, never knew what was over the next hill. Only one did any significant damage (all cosmetic), but more than a few took rides that would make Santa's reindeer envious.

Secretariat, thanks for making me spit on my screen with the Wisconsin crack hit a couple there, but only kissed them goodbye...

Oh, I did finally get one of those deer whistles and it seemed to work.

 

Do you keep the kill number on your driver's side door like a fighter pilot?

 

Funny you should ask. Some wiseass at work put six of those Christmas reindeer stickers on my back window one day. Almost made him the first two-legged victim.

 

Was driving home from covering a basketball game one night, saw one in the road as I was driving out of a small town. Slowed almost to a stop, deer slowly walks off the road. As I start to accelerate, a second doe bounds out of the woods and slams into the side of my car.

First one I had hit in 21 years of being on the road in this business. I figured I was probably due for one, considering all of the areas I drive through with a heavy deer population.

 

Sheeit, I live in Jasper Co., Ga. Deer Capital of the World.

I forget how we got that title, but if I don't almost hit a deer driving home at night, it's rare.

You learn to react differently, I guess. I have hit an already dead one and clipped another with my mirror.

Almost hit a herd of cows the other night that got out of their field. That scared me, cause they don't move at all.

Had a turkey fly into my side window once.

Killed a cardinal the other day. Hit a opossum and an armadillo, too.

Wife killed a rabbit in our yard yesterday.

 

This thread also reminds me of when I was doing the daily police calls at the first paper I worked at. Dispatcher is giving me the accident information on a guy who hit 2 deer on a country road in the daylight. She says the car was a total loss. And then she said, "It was a Corvette, and the guy was driving it home from the dealership right after buying it ... and oh my God, was he pissed when he was in here filling out the accident report."