Anyone Else Ever Hit a Deer?

[sk9tingfan]

Was driving early this morning on the Merritt Parkway and a deer was standing still in the middle of the road. It was a good thing that I swerved to avoid it. Although I still hit the deer and killed it, I hit it with my left bumper. Had I not done that, I don't think that I would have been starting this thread! Or at a minimum, would have left my frontend on the road!

Any one else have any deer stories to tell?

[cholla]

I hit an elk in Sweden once. Totalled the car, broke some of my own ribs, got a scar on my forehead. The elk survived unlike the rental VW Rabbit I was driving...

[sk9tingfan]

I hit an elk in Sweden once. Totalled the car, broke some of my own ribs, got a scar on my forehead. The elk survived unlike the rental VW Rabbit I was driving...

Wow! I realize that I was quite fortunate. There's a highway that runs from Burlington, VT down to Montpelier that is a favorite moose crossing. Our clients are always warning us about that road around mating season!

[ChelleC]

My grandparents did it twice. Both times they were driving brand new cars. Neither car was totaled though.

[Wyliefan]

That's a tricky one. They tell you you SHOULDN'T swerve -- but it sounds like, in your case, swerving was for the best!

My sister reported accidentally "tapping" a deer with her car the other day when it appeared out of nowhere -- she was able to slow down but not to completely avoid it. She said it sort of tipped over, then righted itself and left!

[rfisher]

My car is in the shop right now due to an encounter two weeks ago. You should not swerve. A state trooper brought his car in before mine. He swerved, missed the deer and hit a guard rail head on.

[Marlowe]

Why shouldn't you swerve? I've heard that if you hit a deer it can flip up and go through your windshield. Is that true?

[rjblue]

I have hit one deer and been hit by three others. Would the hunters please come and shoot them all- they aren't even a native animal in my area.

The first one, I thought I had blown a rear tire. because there was a loud bang at the rear of my car. I could only tell it was a deer because of the evidence it left on the car. I couldn't find it, but the police found it in the ditch later. This was in the middle of a city/town.

The next one jumped out of roadside brush into the front quarter of my car.

For both of these, I was attending to the road and going only 70kph.

The next one I looked down to change the radio station and the deer was right in front of me. It was right before a bridge and there was a steep ditch on one side and an asphalt plant on the other. The awful thing was that I had just gone through the area where the deer are usually found, and was starting to relax and boom, it was just there. Totalled the van, but I was fine.

The last one was the worst, because the poor deer wasn't killed. A whole herd of them dashed in front of me, and there was nowhere to swerve to. I slowed enough that I only hit the last one, but it was severely injured. The @#$% 911 operator made me leave the scene of the accident and drive to the sign that said the route # of the road (even though I was about 1/4 mile from the RCMP office, and anyone there would have known exactly where I was). I returned and another woman stopped and we had to frantically flag for people to slow down, because what they thought was a dead deer would rise to its feet in front of their cars and flop around on the road. It was awful to watch that poor animal suffer, and it took the RCMP 45 min to get there. I felt bad for days.

I drive 45 min through unpopulated areas to get to work, but all of the deer I've hit have actually been in urban zones. It'd be a rare day that I'd drive without seeing several deer, and I commonly see moose and sometimes even a bear or two.

I've only ever seen one pine marten, and I've never seen a bobcat or a lynx.

[Wyliefan]

Why shouldn't you swerve? I've heard that if you hit a deer it can flip up and go through your windshield. Is that true?

I've always heard you should just slow down as much as possible, because swerving might lead to an even worse accident.

[sk9tingfan]

Why shouldn't you swerve? I've heard that if you hit a deer it can flip up and go through your windshield. Is that true?

That is exactly why I swerved.

[GarrAarghHrumph]

I luckily haven't, but my friend did, and totalled her car.

[Rob]

About 4 years ago, a deer ran smack into the side of my SUV. It rolled and got up and ran away, but there is a big dent in my door. Door still opens so I haven't bothered getting it fixed - it is our junky hauling truck so it doesn't matter what it looks like.

[Satellitegirl]

rjblue, that's what I'm always worried about.. having the deer half alive. If I ever get a gun, I'll keep it handy for putting one out of it's misery. My parents saw one with a broken back in a ditch once. They both came home in tears that day. It's one of the reasons I am glad there is *some* hunting, because if there wasn't, there would be far more incidents like that than there already are.

I've had a buck jump out in front of me before..but I was able to slam on my brakes(no one behind me).

[Habs]

Hubby and I hit a deer on the highway two years ago. It came charging up out of the ditch and hit the front bumper on the passenger side. It flew up into the windshield, onto the roof of the car, and off the back bumper. The windshield shattered but did not cave in, which is probably why both hubby and I are still alive right now.

Very, very scary. The car needed some work but was not totalled. The deer didn't die right away either. It was laying in the middle of the highway. A couple of people stopped to help us, and two men grabbed the deer, pulled it into the ditch and killed it

Spoiler

with a baseball bat

[Allen]

I've had a couple really close calls with deer. Once I was rounding a curve and a deer jump over the hood of my car. I was probably less than a foot from having it come through my windshield. My cousin lives in an area with an extremely high deer population and has hit 3 or 4. Glad you are okay.

[rjblue]

It is actually illegal to shoot a deer next to the road, unless you are a law enforcement official, otherwise we could have just flagged someone down and got them to fetch their rifle.

I feel sorry for the poor men who had to do that. My husband once had to kill a groundhog we hit, in a similar way, and it really bothered him, but the thought of letting the poor animal suffer any longer than it had to was worse.

[Castlerock]

I hit "Bambi" I saw the mother deer crossing the road ahead, so I stopped. Then once I started driving again, Bambi came out of nowhere. I just knocked it over since I wasn't driving fast. There was no blood or anything, but I was young and was so upset. It just did a little damage to the front light/bumper of my 10 day old car! 2 farmers stopped by and were arguing over who would take the deer since I didn't want it. I called police later because I wasn't sure what to do, and he said I should have kept the deer and sold it for the meat Now I know why the farmers wanted it!!

[Rob]

Scariest deer situation I ever had was coming off the Chesapeake Bay bridge. We were in the left lane exiting the bridge when a deer jumped out from under the bridge rails and got clipped by the bumper of the pick up truck in front of us. Thank god there was no one in the center lane so my husband changed lanes quickly. The deer went airborne and literally bounced up the bridge past us in the left lane. If we'd still been there, it would have landed right on top of us. Fortunately, the cars behind us were able to change lanes or stop. So the only damage was to the pick up truck (and the poor deer). It could have been really awful.

[Dave of the North]

Lots of deer around here and lots of them get hit.

I hit a moose back in 1980. Dark rainy night - never saw it until the last second. I wasn't injured but my car was totalled - moose came up the hood and crushed the roof on the passenger side. Moose was killed...I was moving a car load of stuff to my new apartment and had to clean moose hair off everything.

[ChelleC]

Why shouldn't you swerve? I've heard that if you hit a deer it can flip up and go through your windshield. Is that true?

Yes, it is true. There was an accident here recently where a car hit a deer, which then went airborne. The deer went through the windshield of another car, killing the passenger.