Posted on 12/03/2008 4:47:38 PM PST by goldstategop
I hit a deer once while driving a Jeep Wrangler. I wasn’t going very fast, maybe 35 mph, but the deer’s head sort of exploded, like an old clay pot. It happened so suddenly, and it was such a shock, that I just kept driving and never stopped. The Jeep had a metal half door and a plastic flap for a window that was partly zipped down at the time. Just after the head flew apart, some wet, sandy, hairy, bit of mush flew into my mouth though the window. By reflex, I spit it out and kept spitting for the next minute or so. Later, when I got home I found a deep conical dent in the metal part of the door just beside where my stomach or kidney might have been if the deer’s antler had not been stopped. Oddly, I didn’t remember seeing any antlers, but then everything happened in less than a second.
Yes, the thing landed in front of me (didn’t run, but lunged out of the woods and landed right in front of my moving car).
It would be a comprehensive claim.
No, I think it just another case of DSS.......Deranged Squirrel Syndrome.
Strangely enough, people are more inclined to miss hitting skunks than any other critter.............Nah, its not official, its just my observation.
My friend's son was killed when he hit a horse. He was driving a small car also, I just don't remember what kind.
I ran over a huge wild hog one morning at 4am in my wife’s Dodge K car. As the beast rolled under the car the vehicle lifted off the road.
“On safari in Africa, I shot an elephant in my pajama’s. How he got in there, I’ll never know!” - Groucho Marx.
Really? Virtually everyone I know who travels up north has at one time or another creamed a deer. My niece's husband being the latest about 3 weeks ago up by Traverse City............
I was on a long cross country road trip once, and wanted to make the push home or whereever. It was about zero-dark-thirty, and I was in sort of a zone. Suddenly (wake uuuuppp..!) a humongous deer shot across the road right in front of my bumper, just missing by a cigarette paper. Before I could react, the dog that was chasing it, his head exploded as the corner of my car hit it. I felt terrible, but what can ya do?
Deer collisions fall under a different part of your auto policy, you shouldn’t have to worry so much about deductible, btw.
I hit a Mt. lion in Northern CA.
It was about 6 am during the summer, so it was light at the time. I was cruisin pretty good about 65.
I saw it only very briefly. It lunged out from the left side of the road and I saw it take like two humongous leaps in my direction, the final one with it’s left paw raised like it was ready to strike.
I’m driving a Nissan Sentra, I hear this huge BAM!, then it slams the left front side of the car. I drive about a quarter of a mile shaking like a leaf, stop, check the car, and go back.
Had barely clipped it on the front of the face with the lower left bumper, which had only a slight, almost unnoticable dent in it. The force of getting hit had spun her around so that she impacted my left tire, but the only damage it did was to destroy the wheel cover.
She was lying right in the center of the road on the yellow line, motionless and had lost already about two quarts of blood or so.
A California Dept of Fish and Game was driving by and stopped to make sure I was alright, which I was, but still quite shaken. Dragged her out of the road, took a ton of pics, and left.
Shoulda tossed her in the trunk and headed to the nearest taxidermist, would have been worth 3-5 K.
The stats are from AAA (2005). I always assume Michigan to top the list. Maybe there are more AAA insured drivers in PA.
Not an unusual thing at all in most rural areas. I had a close call once - fortunately I got on the brake quick enough to miss the deer. I was driving a truck at the time so I (we) would have been safe. Most cases where people get hurt are in cars. Or so I’ve heard.
I hit a deer in a rented car back in 2000. Actually, the deer hit ME . . . the dumb bastard was grazing on the side of the road and just leaped into the side of the car as I drove past. He took off the passenger-side mirror and left a dent in the side door, and there was a tuft of hair in the narrow crack between the door and the body panel.
It ended up costing me a $500 deductible for the insurance claim.
It's a good thing that we all come from a long line of survivors.
Absolutely the most funny deer/car story to date:
http://www.goofball.com/stopgo
I almost hit a black bear up in British Columbia about five years ago. That would have been ugly.
My cousin had just returned home from a long trip across country in his car. He had to go to a town about 20 miles from his home the evening he returned. On the way home from the town nearby, he hit a deer, or it hit him. The deer died, and his car was totaled. We all were thankful he wasn’t hurt and that the accident happened close to home rather than on his trip.
Glad you weren’t hurt too. We have known people who have been killed in those type of accidents.
a good friend of mine hit a deer at 115mph on his motorcycle.
The deer won.
Happened to me on a freeway in Denver about 20 years ago in a rental car (mid-’80s Ford Thunderbird). Hit the thing dead on going about 60 mph (the front end was torn up pretty good), but thankfully it missed the windshield and flew right over the top. Looked in my rearview mirror and saw it land in my lane. ....way back. Continued on my way, without stopping.
Here where I live they will cross the road but don’t hang out in the road. There’s just too much to eat growing by the side of the road.
I know up there in your neck of the woods, Michigan and Ontario they have alot of animals hit because the skeeters literally drive them nuts, right out of the woods and into the road.
When I hitched across Canada years back saw a couple examples on the Queen Victoria highway.
When a semi messes with an Elk, the semi usually wins, but it is ONE HELL OF A MESS!!
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