quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
Yeah, he was bookin!

Roger that! I'd argue the thread title might be '...And A Deer Smacks Me!"

Very glad you weren't hurt, but sorry to hear about the vehicle.

A bit ago, damn deer came outa low spot on my right side and took the front end off my 2011 Ridgeline to the tune of 3K. As several have mentioned, deer are everywhere, not heavily hunted, and pain in the neck. Be careful at pre dawn and evening twilight if on the roadways.
Blackhorse4

My son had a big buck run into the side of his truck last year. Would have been thousands in damage to the truck if it had been worth anything to start with. Deer was DRT with a broken neck, virtually no meat damage. He picked up the truck parts, put the deer in the bed, got a possession permit from the sheriff's dept, and we butchered it in our garage. 50lbs of free venison supplemented our stash of expensive beef pretty nicely.

A whitetail deer can easily weigh well upwards of 200lbs around here, and they can run 35-40mph. If that hits you, it can cause significant damage. And if you hit it at 55-70mph, it's REALLY going to break some stuff. And with corn and trees growing right up to the edge of the road in a lot of places, there's often zero warning before they're out in front of you. I've destroyed two different vehicles in the past 20 years hitting the stupid things.

Last car dealership I worked prior to retiring, almost quit over a deer hit.

Long story short, we had a display at a large car show, the truck was showing off what parts we sold. End of the show our driver with the trailer never showed up, my manager stuck me with taking it back to the dealership over my objections, just had a bad feeling.

So, leaving the venue in Downtown Detroit I first see the gas gauge was dangerously low. No way at 1 A.M. am I stopping for gas there, great place for robbery, carjacking, both or worse. Got to suburbia on fumes, a lot safer.

So, it starts raining, great, low profile tires, lousy in the rain. I’m going under the speed limit, truck was valued around 70-75k in 2013 dollars. Two miles from the shop a deer jumps out in front of me, 45 zone, I’m doing 35. Brake hard, try to avoid, nope, smacked it right in the hip. Stop, assess damage, call manager, tell him and drop it off at the shop.

Next day he tells me that I am liable for the deductible, one thousand dollars. I told him “Nope”, write it off. We went at it, he said “Its coming out of your check” to which I said “Make it my final check then and see you and the company in court.”

He wrote it off……

Had one bolt in front of my motorcycle a couple of weeks ago, 3 of us riding in suburban Orlando, no where near the highways or farms not a rural location.

Saw the little sob out of the corner of my eye running parallel on the other side of the road, lucky I throttled back. He decided it was a good idea to cross in front of us, lucky I was already for him and hauled it down fast.

Could see the "oh shit" look in his eyes, pretty sure I had a similar look, guy behind me was too busy not paying attention, and rolled right up beside me then saw the deer and braked.

See plenty of them on roadsides around here in the country....

I owned a truck free and clear for three days I believe it was. The title came in the mail a few days after it was totaled. Sorry to hear it Mars.

I lived in Montana for 40 years. I hit 5 of them in that time.
Mike

So AFTER reading this thread, I went on a trip to Rochester MN last Wednesday. Second day I'm there, my host and I had plans for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. Then two other people flying in for the same event, got stuck in Chicago when their flight was delayed and they missed their connection. So we decided to skip dinner and go get them instead of making them wait half a day at O'Hare for another flight. 10 hours later, middle of the night, we're on our way back to Rochester when a deer takes off across I-90 in front of us. I was driving and hit the brakes, but it was far enough out that I didn't hit it. Scared the crap out of me for a minute though. Rental car.

I'm knocking on wood as here in Michigan I've had many close calls.

One that sticks out is, I was working in a bakery, two miles from home.
I'd get out around 2am +/- and it was winter so I started my car to heat up, went back in and closed up shop.

Half way home on the snowy road I looked down at my heat controller to adjust the fan down for a second or two. And then I looked back up.

Right (slow) lane, a doe standing still.
Middle turn lane, a doe standing still.
Me in the left (fast) lane, frozen, had time to lift off the gas and that's all.

I went straight between them before I could react.
Any other movement from the three of us could have been bad.

Normally when they are moving, they are very unpredictable. They'll reverse course on a dime and run back in front of you just when you think they are gone.