A Close One

[oldE]

Bringing the granddaughter home from dance practice last night. Had just turned onto the 1/4 mile stretch where our driveway is located. At the same time there's a car coming the other way with his high beams still on. I'm probably still doing 90 kph when a doe steps out of the glare of the oncoming lights and stops in my lane.

I do not want this animal bouncing off the hood and coming through the windshield.
You know the advice: look where you want to go? Golden. I have to say the Continentals handled the massive steering inputs. The abs functioned perfectly and the chassis did what I needed it to do. WHAM!

When I got stopped, back in my own lane, I reversed, thinking there would be a damaged animal on the shoulder. Nothing. The other car went by and we proceeded to our driveway. My granddaughter said she could see the deer going back across the road in the light from a streetlight.
I got a good light when we got out and inspected the area of contact. Just one scrape, probably from a hind hoof on the corner of the bumper cover. No broken lights, no dents, just one small scrape and a couple of elevated heart rates.
Close one.

[p911dad]

Good driving, good equipment and good luck! I recall a number of those close calls back when we lived in upstate NY with all the many deer hiding in the weeds. In one case I hit the deer head-one while cutting over a hill from one valley to home, got almost stopped before contact and he flew over the hood and off the back into the ditch. All that was left of the contact was some deer hair on the wipers. The buck was up and running by the time I got out to look.

[oldE]

That's the first time I have made contact with a deer. About 20 years ago I had a buck jump over a guard rail onto the shoulder right in front of me. I hit the brakes and the rear end of the truck stepped out. The buck reversed course and disappeared back over the guard rail. Good thing, as there was no chance to maneuver to avoid.
20 years before that I had a similar experience with a yearling moose. It was close, with no contact between the moose and my VW Rabbit. By the time I got to the top of the next hill, my knees were shaking.

[Crowbob]

Years ago, one very dark and icy deer season evening, driving 70-ish northward on 1-75 north of Houghton Lake in a bare bones F-100 pickup with no radio and my two little kids fast asleep strapped to the vinyl bench seat, the taillights of the two cars 1/4 mile ahead of me all of a sudden blinked erratically for a second or two.

Weird.

Next thing I know I’m headed straight into a flock of GD deer nonchalantly walking across the freeway like they owned the place. Holy fudge on a stick! Feet off the pedals, I aimed for a small opening, bracing for impact.

Just as the driver’s wheels, front and back lifted, the driver’s door mirror swiped the white tail of one of ‘em while just above the hood on the passenger’s side a huge deer head with eyes wide-open sailed over the cab.

I jerked the steering wheel back to neutral forcing the truck to violently plant all for tires and coasted to a stop on the shoulder of the highway. I looked at my two babies, fast asleep, and sobbed at the miracle I had just experienced.

Not a scratch.

[herr_oberst]

I've had a close encounter with a deer, almost like that, without the scraped fender. Sometimes I think there might be adrenaline junkies out there in the wild; squirrels, deer, chipmunks, birds, all playing chicken with cars.

[greglepore]

Hit a large doe in my e28 m5 going 70ish before braking on the Pa Tpk. The car I was passing hit her fawn.
My body guy had the car for close to 3 months. Couldn't tell he did both fenders, hood, inner supports, rad, a/c condensor, bumper, airdam etc.
6 months later coming home from a Cowboy Junkies show the same car got away from me going 30 mph near the same spot-it was snowing and the initial accumulation had melted and refroze on the roadway-and the car spun and hit the jersey barrier. All the stuff fixed was broken again. My body guy wanted to know if I hated him. So did State Farm....

[rwest]

As a kid, I was driving the 914 around the dark roads of a semi gated community that was known to have a lot of deer, so I had my hand near the headlight switch and I pushed it off when I saw a deer staring straight at me frozen until the lights went off and it quickly ran away before I got to it.

[LWJ]

Coming back from a fishing trip years back, my buddy got the SUV all sideways avoiding a fat doe. We rolled. Hard impact. Missed a cliff by a very thin margin. Someone or several should have died. Nobody did. One broken neck.

The takeaway. The driver was not the best. He was used to a tight handling BMW. He was driving a horrible Isuzu SUV.

Since then, my strategy has been to brake but not swerve. Haven't really needed to take wildlife evasive action since then.

I would love to hear thoughts from others on this.

[stevej37]

I've had many near hits and one hit that totaled my English Ford Cortina. Our deer population is way too high imo.

Never swerve to miss...braking is good, but if they are on a full run, they still might get youl
Early morning and dusk are the worst times.

[pwd72s]

One tip..be especially alert when there are brush or tree patches on both sides of a road...deer prefer to cross roads where they have cover on both sides....

[Otter74]

I have only hit a deer once, and I would love to never hit one again.

I was in West Virginia on a rally a few years ago, doing about 35-40 down a road through a recreation area. A doe ran out in front of me, and I don't think I even had time to slow down. Maybe I did a bit. Unfortunately she was still alive in the ditch. I don't carry, and I didn't know at the time that you could call the police to take care of that.

All things considered, it wasn't that bad. I bought an off-road light and plugged it into a fog light circuit so that I had a light to drive back to Chicago on. The AC still worked. I was afraid State Farm would total the car, but they fixed it.

This was the only year that I didn't drive the 911 on that rally, and I'm glad for that. Would certainly have gone into and then through or over the windshield.

[jhynesrockmtn]

Glad you ended up being ok.

Almost 2 years ago we hit two small deer in my 2024 F150 towing a 26ft travel trailer. They jumped from the ditch on the side of the road and glanced off the truck doing 55mph. I really couldn't see any damage other than either side of the fender. There was the smallest of gaps where the bumpers met the fender. I just kept driving it. Several weeks ago I am having trouble with some notifications from the system and the tech tells me there are a bunch of stored codes for the adaptive cruise and collision avoidance system and I should get it checked out.

Well, $5,500 later, I got it back. The cost for one headlight (which had broken tabs) was $1,700. There was more damage behind the grill than anyone thought. The cost to make sure all of the sensors are aligned is close to $1,000 in labor and a charge for their equipment. My deductible is $500. I have toyed with getting a guard for the front but have hesitated due to the weight and looks. I am going to check them out more now.

[911 Rod]

Glad you and the kidos are okay.
I've hit deer in my past. Biggest word of advice is if you see a deer, stop your vehicle. Don't just slow down. It's amazing how you can see them 50 ft off the road and a second later they bound in front of you.

[rwest]

Anyone know what a Tesla or other “self driving” car is programmed to do if it sees a deer in the headlights?

[GH85Carrera]

Back in the days when I commuted to work (shudder) I was going about 45 and saw a doe blast out of the trees along the road, right in front of me. I hit the brakes and missed her. As I started going again a buck ran right behind me, hot on the tail of the doe. I was pretty sure what the buck had on his mind. Both of them missed me by just feet.

[javadog]

I had one year when I had three near misses, nothing before or since. Two were extremely close calls. The first one was in one of my quattros and the rear hooves of the deer kissed my windshield as it cleared the car. The second two were the same day, in the TR. One the way to dinner in a rural steakhouse 2 hours away, I passed through a herd of deer crossing an empty two lane road. Coming back, took a different route down an undivided 4 lane highway and had to do the mother of all swerves at 80mph to miss it. Left tire marks in all 4 lanes.

Nothing since, although I see them daily traveling to and from my sisters house that I'm remodeling. An entire herd live in her neighborhood, they're everywhere.

Worse than the deer was when I was in a group of 5 motorcycles doing warp two, nose to tail in the middle of nowhere on the nightly summer coffee run we did back in the day and an entire pack of coyotes passed through our group, running at full speed. Nobody hit anything.

Back in the 80's, when I managed the body shop at the dealership, I'd write at least one deer total a day this time of year.

[oldE]

Follow up. Yesterday morning, heading to town I could see my tire marks on the pavement. The road surface had been damp with occasional showers. I don't recall any noise of tortured tires. The wheels didn't lock, but I'm guessing the abs had the tires on the edge of traction.
As for the advice of 'don't swerve '. I would submit it depends upon the situation. Had I not taken avoiding action in this instance, my insurance company would be involved right now. When the yearling moose seemed likely to have its legs taken out by my little VW, I didn't dare swerve, as I didn't know which way it might go. In that case I was 'both feet in'.

[juanbenae]

Where there is one, there's usually at least one more yet to cross..... I always slow to be ready for the second one....

[masraum]

Congrats on a good save of your car, the critter, and your granddaughter's piece of mind (I'm sure that would have been traumatic for her).

I moved to the country about 5 years ago. I've been driving into the office early morning (0-dark-thirty) 3 days a week. I'm always VERY watchful. I've seen them on the side of the road 2-3 times. Fortunately, I don't do much other night driving.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Otter74

I have only hit a deer once, and I would love to never hit one again.

I was in West Virginia on a rally a few years ago, doing about 35-40 down a road through a recreation area. A doe ran out in front of me, and I don't think I even had time to slow down. Maybe I did a bit. Unfortunately she was still alive in the ditch. I don't carry, and I didn't know at the time that you could call the police to take care of that.

All things considered, it wasn't that bad. I bought an off-road light and plugged it into a fog light circuit so that I had a light to drive back to Chicago on. The AC still worked. I was afraid State Farm would total the car, but they fixed it.

This was the only year that I didn't drive the 911 on that rally, and I'm glad for that. Would certainly have gone into and then through or over the windshield.

A photo showing the benefits of a tool roll over a tool bag...