How Often Does This Happen To You?

[Grizzly Adam]

It is depressingly common here where I live.

Here's the recent record:

Collision # 6 since February of 2008

Time: 4:30 AM

Place: Our dead-end gravel road

Event: 2007 Deer Vs. 1998 GMC

Speed: GMC @ 30 mph. - Deer @ Unknown

There I was, on my way to the ninety-miles-away hospital again (not for me, but for someone else) ... I'd managed to get safely through the open field section of the mile long road to the highway, and had just entered the wooded section, when:

HERE HE CAME!

I'd been watching the road edges like a hawk, knowing the likelihood of just this thing, but you can't avoid it. He rocketed out of the weeds only 10 feet in front of me going FULL-TILT-BOOGIE.

I laid on the brake, but to no avail. The left corner of my front bumper hit him squarely in his left ham:

WHUNK!

It was a nice-sized four point, still carrying both antlers. I clearly saw him thrown from the bumper in a 360 degree spin.

When I stopped, he was gone. I didn't pursue. No time; a quick check of the truck revealed no damage whatsoever. I'm sure the impact had to break his hip, if not his pelvis. Don't know whether he lived or died. I'll watch for buzzards tomorrow.

As for the truck, it was unscathed.

GMC - We Are Professional Grade



Of course, deer #1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 hit me full in the side of the truck, and cost Tyrrell County Farm Bureau $1500 ... but we won't talk about that!

[mikej]

it is quite common here but we have to pay damages ourselves

[crazyfarmer]

its also the most common used excuse to the police for someone just not paying attention to the road

Which suks because wolf has been cried so much, you dont know when to believe someone when a deer really did jump out.

ive been lucky and had only one mishap with a big doe about 7 years ago. This deer actaully hit me in the rear quarter panel. I was in a GMC but had 1200 in damage though

[Grizzly Adam]

it is quite common here but we have to pay damages ourselves

Incredible! If comprehensive insurance didn't cover animal collisions (deer and bear especially) here, finance companies wouldn't offer vehicle loans!

Here in NC, leinholders and loss-payees require both comp and collision insurance, or they don't loan you the money!

As for me, I own all my vehicles, but I still carry comp and collision.

You'd be a nut not too around here.

[wildwindom]

My wife totaled my 2002 dodge neon with a doe at 65 mph!! No damage to the wife just the car.Glad the insurance company totaled it thats how im driving my f150!!

[Golden Eagle]

Glad your Ok Griz. It is very common in Pa. too. We kill more deer on the roads here than some states kill in Hunting Seasons.

[Grizzly Adam]

Its also the most common used excuse to the police for someone just not paying attention to the road Which suks because wolf has been cried so much, you dont know when to believe someone when a deer really did jump out.

On most any drive in or out of our road after dark or before daylight, you'll see between 10 and 30 deer cross the road in front of you.

They hurtle out of the fields like mad.

Once in a while, a KAMIKAZE DEER nails you.

Five hit me in the side last year ... one when I was fully stopped, and two when I was doing less than 10 miles per hour.

Had I been fifteen feet farther down the road, this one would have hit me in the side too!

BTW, Crazy ... April (who's a Farm Bureau agent) said she handles at least 10 verifiable deer collision claims per month ... complete with blood and hair! She says that's a LOW AVERAGE estimate!

That's just one insurance agency of three in the county!

[Normous]

In 2005 we hit two deer one hour apart with a Chrysler M300 rental car while vacationing in California. Patti hit the first one and was so shook up by it that I had to drive. Under and hour later I rounded a bend at 70 MPH and a doe jumped over the guard rail right in front of me. Patti was still upset over the first collision and became even more so after the second.
My Platinum Credit Card contained rental car coverage and paid the entire $8,600 in damages.

[ecoaster]

Gotta love those GMCs . I avoided a rear end pile up one time, but ended up putting the 89 GMC Sierra 2500 into the ditch and hit the side of someones driveway at 60km/h. Hit it hard enough to make a mess out of everything in the back of the truck. Put it in 4wd and backed her out. One tube of crazy glue fixed the cracked grill and that was it .

Sounds like you need to Newfie your truck with a good bush bar . I think they come as a standard feature on any vehicle sold in Newfoundland.

[pdislow]

last week my daughter and her mother were touring N.C. STATE U. campus and when they were coming home merging onto I-40 very near raleigh they hit a deer and wound up riding 2 hours home in a rollback truck.

i usually get one on the way to turkey hunting before daylight, and i don't have collision and comp. so i just keep driving my 96 silverado around with another badge of honor on it.

[kennisondan]

I just replaced the shattered front grill and twisted bumper on my rover with a steel bumper of welded plate, and made a grill based on jeep's grills of the same steel and painted it all black....
I hope I don't hit em in the ham or the backstrap.. rib shot is fine..
dk

[killshot]

My wife smoked a doe last spring with her 2004 Grand Prix. She was lucky hood, drivers fender took off the mirior and messed up the drivers door. Total cost 7500$

We are still pulling out hair.

[mikej]

our inurance covers animal collisions but you mentioned Tyrrell County Farm Bureau i thought that was a county office that covered the damages not an insurance company . my mistake

[DuckHunt]

I commute about 45 miles each way through Loudoun county Virginia each morning where they legally tag over 7000 deer each year. I think they take about the same amount with automobiles. You can tell when the deer are moving by how many are on the sides of the road. In the peak of the rut seeing ten carcass is normal.

In a quarter century of driving I had never hit one till last year. I hit two in one month. One with each vehicle. My first was similar to yours, it hit me. The does head actually came through the rolled down drivers window of my car and hit the door pillar at 55mph. She almost kissed my cheek. I never knew a deers' head had so much snot in it.

Even a cattle guard does nothing to help the ones that run into the side of you. Mine were $2800 & $3300 damage. It just gives me more incentive to practice population control.

DuckHunt

[bbbwb]

Grizz:
Have you ever thought of giving the forum a questionnaire as to how many members would consider providing some assistance (lodging food provided by the host of course) in a harvest population control exercise at your residence? hahaha
Maybe it is possible for the state to provide a special "kill permit" to their honourable resident and his designates.
The exercise could finish with a venison roast social.
Take this all in in good fun Grizz.
bbbwb