Have you ever hit a deer, or what's the closest you've come to hitting one without actually hitting it?

I wasn’t in the car, but last year my parents did pretty much the same thing, except the dumb creature was just standing there in the road. They think the front of their car just tapped it – it stumbled a little, then ran off. Was a very close call.

No. But we have a lot of deer around also. They are in my yard constantly, on my driveway or crossing it. One time I was driving towards my house on the very winding road that leads to it, and thank goodness I was not speeding, because as I came around a corner there was a deer. I wound up coming to a compete stop, waiting for her to get out of the road. She actually walked more towards the middle at first, and then finally leaped away into the woods on the side she was closest too on the road.

I grazed one. I think I just hit its leg. Luckily there was no damage.

My youngest son just hit one a couple months ago. It killed the deer but he walked away with no injuries. We had a minor dent on the car and had to replace one of the lights. It shook him up a bit. He was really lucky he didn’t get hurt.

@jonsblond Thanks, I can understand why he was shaken. I was sure I had this one with my s/o the animal lover sitting right next to me.

I have hit one and I have had one hit me. The one that hit me put a crease in the truck from the drivers door where he hit first to the rear bumper.
I couldn’t find that deer when I looked for it.

The other I hit when a herd crossed the road in front of me. There was no way to avoid them, so I picked a little one and hit it square, had about $3500 damage to the truck. I took that deer home and ate what was left of it.

If you do have an animal crossing in front of you, don’t swerve to avoid it. Your risk of injury increases substantially, and if you leave the road many times your insurance will not pay. Also if you are going straight when you impact an animal you have a better chance of maintaining control of the vehicle.

I’ve been very lucky in 20 years in a high deer density area up here in the Sierra foothills.
I have had quite a few near misses, ( most recently just a few weeks ago after dark one night ) and one deer that I caught out of the corner of my eye leaping into the road from the woods.
I braked and it, literally, ran into the side of my car, fell down, got up and ran away.
I like to think it was not injured.

I have several friends that have not been so lucky and have killed, maimed deer and had severe damage to their vehicles, although they escaped injury.
I have however, had the sad experience of coming across a few hit animals and standing by while waiting on the local game warden to come “dispatch” them.
One beautiful buck that sustained a broken pelvis and was dragging itself across the road, and a little fawn that was still alive with mortal injuries. :-(

I also don’t drive after dark in these hills if I can avoid it, which cuts the risk by a lot.
I happen to love the deer and just last night had a huge buck following 2 does down my driveway at dusk. I was standing in my garage and they all were just a few yards away looking for spilled corn from the goose corral.

It’s a sad situation for both humans and animals in rural areas such as where I live.

Yeah, I still have the hair stuck in the front of my car. I just hit its behind as it ran past. The deer did a spin in the air and kept going lol.

A deer sideswiped my car in the dark; luckily I was driving only 35 mph, but still, the thump and the impact were loud and severe.

He dented all available parts on the driver’s side of the car.rear bumper,.back door, front door, hood, and front bumper,and side mirror. The repairs were very expensive, but neither I nor my elderly passenger were injured other than having shaken-up.

Here I see the herd placidly grazing in my fields and on my shrubs all the time. They and Milo exist in two parallel universes.

Even when I drive up the driveway, the deer no longer scatter.

At night, I see their glowing eyes everywhere. And I too see carcasses by the road. When I drive after dark, rarely in winter, I am very vigilant.

Often it is the second deer that gets you or is the one that you get.

@gailcalled

Right, if one jumps across the road you better believe, 9 out of 10 times, several more will be following the leader.
There is a group of about 5 or 6 that are in the same place down my road every evening, by some apple trees that still have a few stragglers falling. You get to know the haunts and stretches of road where they most frequent.

I came about six inches once. I had to stop in the middle of the road and the guy didn’t even move!

Driving across Utah in the middle of the night last month, we were on the interstate doing 80 mph and in a flash I saw an elk standing right beside the white line on the right side of the road, about 2 feet from our car. He was a big one. Huge antlers. We could have so easily hit him. We drove six more hours that night and I don’t think I blinked once, definitely didn’t sleep. lol

Oh and when I was younger, a friend of mine that owned a farm was driving home with her family at night in a minivan and one of THEIR HORSES had gotten out of the pasture and was in the middle of the road. They hit it and killed it and it did about as much damage to them and the car as you can possibly imagine. They all lived though….I’m not sure how. They must not have been going too fast.

@deni

OMG! I forgot about the monster Elk I almost hit in Utah a few years ago too!
This guy was massive, I swear he was 7 feet tall. lol
Whew!

There was a photo in our little local rag, several years ago, of a car attached to a telephone pole with a moose sitting in the front passenger seat.

Luckily the driver was not hurt. Nor, apparently, was the moose.

I’ve been hit by deer, twice. Once in mountain snow and the door bounded across the road, one of it’s feet kicked the edge of my car’s hood. The other time was out in a prairie and a deer bounded across and smacked more of it’s leg across the car hood. That time I stopped and walked out looking for the deer thinking it might be badly wounded.

I was on my way home and noticed 3 deer in someone’s yard. I came to a complete stop. Then they saw me an darted. One of the deer ran smack into the rear quarter panel of my car and knocked itself out. It was up and gone by the time my dad went back to check.

Why are deer so wacky?

I haven’t ever hit one (THANK GOODNESS), but I come about thiiiiiis close every winter. I am always just about to miss one, they are always out and about in this area. I seem to have a 6th sense for animals near the road, I have been very fortunate to have only ever hit a bird… which flew into my windshield, so, technically I didn’t hit it (it hit me.)

I have a lot of close calls, though.
I dread the day it happens, because I will probably be too petrified to drive a car ever again.

Earlier today someone posted a status on Facebook about how the next time they see a dead deer on the side of the road they are going to put on a Santa costume and hold up a sign next to it that says “Could use a ride.” Made me laugh.

I told this story here once before, and had forgotten again until now.
Years ago some friends and I were camping and we made a beer run to the campground market. We came upon a downed motorcycle and a guy laying on the side of the road with a ranger tending to him.
He was lying on his back with a blanket pulled up over his chest, but was talking, eyes open, clearly alive.

As we drove past slowly, right smack in the middle of the road, was a pile of intestines and a stomach or something.

A pile of guts!

We were so freaked out, couldn’t make sense of what we were seeing, until, the return trip when we saw a dead deer in the weeds on the other side of the road with a gaping hole in it’s belly!

OMG! Talk about an illusion!
How could a disimbowled man be talking?

Looks like he hit the deer and it gutted itself on the clutch or handle bars. ???

It was horrible and traumatizing to say the least! :-/

@Coloma Oh my god they must grow jumbo ones there, the one I saw was a big one too! Yeeeeeeek.

Full grown elk average between 500 and 700 lbs on the hoof, the normal whitetail in Utah is usually less than 200 lbs. Even the little ones look big at night on the road.

Do Buffalo count?

I’ve hit two deer, different occasions, right by my house. They were small so there was minimal damage to my vehicle. They both ran out in front of me and luckily I wasn’t going very fast. The first one died almost immediately. The second once didn’t die but had four broken legs and was just lying there in the road. So I had to kill that one myself. I didn’t want it to die a slow painful death. I have to tell you that wasn’t a good morning. I took both to the butcher and my little neighborhood enjoyed the venison.