Car Accidents Caused by Deer

[SiG Lady]

I spent the next hour or so wenching horse parts up onto the deck of my truck."

Uh, that's WINCHING.

[ken hebert]

I spent the next hour or so wenching horse parts up onto the deck of my truck."

Uh, that's WINCHING.

You don't KNOW that, you are assuming. He could have been doing some freaky renaissance fair goofy crap with a WENCH while on O-dark-thirty wrecker duty!

Back on topic, here in southeast Texas we do have plenty of those sonic warning devices on county and rural police dept vehicles (I upfit vehicles for a living) and of the animal strike wrecks I've personally seen, I have never seen one with a warning equipped vehicle. Not saying they actually work, but....

[Loose Brass]

I spent the next hour or so wenching horse parts up onto the deck of my truck."

Uh, that's WINCHING.

Doh!

[Duane Thomas]

Years ago I was told - and this may be a story from the apocryphal "they", but I believe it because it makes sense - that every year in the U.S. the large animal that kills the most people is the deer. Part of this is that during the rut bucks go nuts, and it's not at all unknown for them to attack hunters, but most of it is that during car accidents it's quite common for the deer to come up over the hood and back into the driver's compartment. Which means you can wind up with a large, injured, terrified creature with very sharp hooves thrashing around in there with you.

Shudder.

I'm paranoid about hitting one of those suckers. When I'm out driving at night, unless there's another car oncoming, it's constant high beams for me, mostly so I can have as much advance warning as possible of a deer crossing the road. Hell, a few nights ago a deer crossed the road in front of me a few blocks from my apartment complex. This is in a heavily built-up, urban area, natch. Jeez.

[Neomet]

If you are in a jacked up F350 plow 'em down. If you driving anything with an eco-friendly aerodynamic front end don't count on not having to pick venison out of your teeth. I think it is probably better to make the decision before you get into your vehicle based on what you are driving rather than waiting and relying on your ability in the .3 seconds you have to decide what you are going to do to decipher the leg length, weight of critter, speed of vehicle and variations in gravitational pull of the earth to make your decision.

Not sure what it says about anything but women will generally hit the animal and men will generally swerve. Sorta the opposite of what I would expect to find.

[Singlestack]

Not sure what it says about anything but women will generally hit the animal and men will generally swerve. Sorta the opposite of what I would expect to find.

Reaction time?

[boz1911]

If you are in a jacked up F350 plow 'em down. If you driving anything with an eco-friendly aerodynamic front end don't count on not having to pick venison out of your teeth. I think it is probably better to make the decision before you get into your vehicle based on what you are driving rather than waiting and relying on your ability in the .3 seconds you have to decide what you are going to do to decipher the leg length, weight of critter, speed of vehicle and variations in gravitational pull of the earth to make your decision.

Not sure what it says about anything but women will generally hit the animal and men will generally swerve. Sorta the opposite of what I would expect to find.

You mean like this??

Note Bedell blaster on RF tire, just in case....

[MichiganShootist]

The shooter that started this thread has been to my home many times and knows that the area is infested with deer, turkeys, bear and other critters you wouldn't want to "bag" with your car.

(It's a Up North rural county with tons of lakes and probably 80% of my township is property specifically dedicated by it's owners to hunting.) On the two mile ride down a county blacktop to the nearest highway it's not uncommon to see 20 deer.

I mounted a set of high intensity running lights on all my vehicles. I mounted them pointed outward about 30 degrees. They really light up the berms of the road and the deers eyes long before you would see them with normal head lights.

They have saved me and my wife from dozens of accidents with deer.... oh yes we always straddle the white line unless we are meeting traffic.

Edited November 14, 2008 by MichiganShootist

[Mooney]

The only time I ever lost the brakes on a vehicle was a back road @ 40mph- came around a corner, one deer in the road, another coming from the passenger side woods- hit the brakes, BLEW A BRAKE LINE>

That was pretty bad, but I made it past them by about 2 inches on either side by hammering the gas....

Why Chevy decided to route the brake line where it wasn't easily accessible for inspection was beyond me too- there's plenty of room under their trucks. The line went up above the fuel tank where a lot of salt and water accumulates... leading to a weak tube wall.

I now drive a lot slower on that road (even though my new(er) Chevy has 4 wheel disc brakes).