Oh, and my car is a 2001 Honda Civic coupe.

well, it was a 2001 honda civic coupe..

Ouch, that has to hurt! Poor deer. Though it probably died pretty quickly.. Oh well. Shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the road anyway! Although WE are the ones that are really imposing on its territory… :\

Oh yeh, stupid Deer. How dare it stand in one of our roads its not like people can drive more carefully or even better take note of signs which denote Deers and wild life ? How silly the Deer is for not knowing what a road is! How fortunate for the Deer that you were going so fast that it was given a quick death, how lucky that deer is.

Ya know… That’s what they make them… whatcheecallit? Oh yeah, steering wheels.

Ya know… for turning to avoid things like deer?

Good thing it wasn’t a moose.

Well Mike,

It’s time you and I went hunting. You know, control the population a bit.

Deer are pretty stupid when it comes to cars anyway. One actually ran into the side of my parents’ old van. There was hair everywhere, but no damage to the van. But stuff like that happens all the time.

Oh and one more thing Mike… I’m calling PETA on you!

With that amount of damage I would be surprised if it wasn’t totaled.

Of course, we all know that you elaborately staged this event with the Deer just so you could get a new tC …

You should get those little whistle thingies that somehow get deer to move their dumbass out of your way. I’ve got no idea what they’re called or how they work, seems I really don’t know much at all does it?

All I know is that the used car I bought had them already and in the 4 years of driving it I actually had several deer get out of my freaking way.

Glad you’re okay, deer accidents can be quite scary.

A few years back a deer ran into the side of the car my girlfriend was riding in. So the car didn’t hit the deer, the deer hit the car. The result was a huge dent at the point of impact, and a bloody deer on the side of the road.

Any chance we can get some pictures of your post-accident civic?

A few weeks ago I was going about 75 mph, when a rabbit suddenly bolted from the side of the road – Slammed on the brakes so hard that everything in the car ended up in the front passenger footwell. At least I missed it. Otherwise, haven’t had many close encounters with animals vs. cars, except when my mom hit a poor sparrow a few years ago (it was lodged in the grille of our truck for the next 10 miles, and of course was dead on impact).

What I don’t get is why animals tend to run towards an oncoming car instead of away from it – you’d think that their bear instincts would tell them to move away from a scary noise than closer to it.

I hit a deer two years ago in my brand new Hyundai Elantra. I was going 70, and the deer was running across the road perpendicular to me. Utterly smashed my front end, ended up costing $6000 to repair. I will never cry during “Bambi” again, I tell you.

Unlike John, thankfully my Hyundai Elantra hasn’t had an encounter with a deer. Though will driving between 80 and 90, a bird did fly across the road just in time to hit my hood and splatter some blood. No damage thankfully!

One time my mom got a bird lodged under her hood. Don’t ask how it got there because I have no idea. She just started hearing a chirping noise one day. Open up the hood a little later and there was a dead bird. Stupid little birdy.

I’m 24 and I’ve hit three deer so far in my driving career (actually two of them ran into the side of my car). I think the deer play a game to see who can get closest without getting hit.

In response to “dumb” deer, they are just animals, I am sure they are not running to the middle of the road to get hit by a car but, I would be curious too if I heard a noise, I mean we do it too don’t we? We hear a noise somewhere in our house, we grab sometime and go check it out, right? Maybe it’s a bad analogy but, it’s the closest one I could think of.

Anywho, it is unfortunate that deers aren’t quicker to move out of the way but, I mean seriously 1000Lbs of metal and plasic going 80Mph vs a deer? It’s no contest…maybe it should be that we should drive at slower speeds when we those deer signs are posted…like 40Mph….just silly enough to work.

I hit a deer near Corning NY on I390 @ 3 AM. He/she came in from the side of the road, outside what little peripheral vision you have at 75 MPH. $5000 dollars worth of damage..

The deer strike also scuttled vacation plans. I ended up staying here the first nights of the car repair: http://www.roadsidenut.com/avoca703.jpg
The family running the hotel took great care of us.

The deer are out of control in NY. There were countless caracasses on I390. Forget about the Bambi supporters, I think the Body Shop lobbyists are behind this, and are more powerful than the hunting lobbyists
To the dude who said “that is what a steering wheel is for” …in most cases there is no way you’ll avoid it no matter what you do, it just happens in a fraction of a second. In fact, you’ll probably magnify your problems 10 fold by trying evasive manuevers.

To the person who slammed on the brakes to miss the rabbit: what were you thinking? You could have killed yourself.

This being a car blog, it’s important to review some basic driving techniques.

If you are approaching a large animal, squirrels and rabbits do not count, rather dogs or larger, brake only, do not swerve. The reason for this is simple, but is best exemplified parable-style.

I know a guy who once swerved to miss hitting a dog. In doing so, he did miss the dog but managed to run over a child’s bicycle, with the child having just gotten off.

When you swerve, you look only at what you are trying not to hit, and do not look at where you are going.

Trust your brakes and don’t swerve. It’s better than hitting pedestrians or other cars.

Yeah, my GF and I have a kind of “joke” about how we must always remind ourselves that if we see a squirrel or rabbit or something small like that while we’re driving that we must destroy it! That way, hopefully, if that situation ever does occur out natural instinct will just be to run thte little sucker over instead of swerving…

Question for those of you who have hit wildlife (I’ve never hit anything bigger than a frog):

Who covers the costs of damage? Your insurance company (assuming you have full coverage), or is it your problem?

Hey Vinnie, I can answer that question.

The number one thing the insurance company is looking for when they first inspect your vehicle after you say you hit an animal are traces of that animal on your car. Lucky (?) for me I have deer entrails stuck up underneath my hood still, so they know I definitely didn’t hit a car or something.

Now that they can classify it as an animal-related accident, the insurance will say its now covered under the comprehensive part of your policy, and not collision like with car-car accidents. This is very important, because with comprehensive claims, your premiums do not go up because the incident was not your fault.

This will make my third comprehensive claim on this vehicle in the past two years. My car was broken into twice, and now this. I still have to pay my deductible though ($200) so its not as though I’m getting this all for free

Nice explanation Mike, thanks! I used to live in Florida where deer are much less of a problem, but nowadays I drive along I-95 in suburban/rural Pennsylvania to get to work and see dead deer on the side of the road pretty frequently. Good to know that my outrageous insurance would cover some of the cost if this happens to me.

Don’t you think you’re kindof a bastard caring more about your stupid car than about the deer you just hit? Damn…

There’s not much use in “caring” for the deer when it’s already dead.

Rats on stilts

Ya caring for the deer….. Hmmm there are tons of them I wish they would send these redneck hunters on a free for all and blow the piss out of as many deer as possible. Either that or put them in some sort of controlled area where there not near the road. Care for the deer instead of the car WOSH whats wrong with you could have been his life you still going to say hey how was the deer ok. Think about what you say next time. Dumb Ass

To the person who slammed on the brakes to miss the rabbit: what were you thinking? You could have killed yourself.

1) I wasn’t thinking – It’s a bit hard to think in panic situations.
2) It doesn’t matter anyway. If this were the freeway or something, then yes, I would’ve just hit it. However, this was out on a totally open two-way road in the middle of nowhere (which would be where I live… for anyone who’s familiar with southern California, I live off of Templin Highway). It’s basically a long, wide, smooth road that nobody travels on. The only way I could’ve killed myself is if I made a sharp left to shoot the car off the hill, which would be downright stupid… I just braked in a straight line in hopes that it’d give the poor thing enough time to finish running across. I have a stupid tender spot for small fuzzy animals.

Mike,

RE: the insurance comment, your insurance CAN actually go up, even with only comprehensive claims. They certainly look better on your record than collision claims, but according to the two insurance companies I have had (State Farm and Allstate), they can still jump if you have too many (or expensive) comprehensive claims.

I hit a deer in my Land Rover, it was brand new I’d only just driven it out of the garage a week previously, but I must say that the car come out pretty well and lucky for me there was no real damage and the deer made a speedy get-away.

My daughter just hit a deer went into ditch after catching gravel on backroad deer got up ran into woods insurance adjuster for Farm Bureau denied comprehensive claim because” deer never run off after being hit” we needed to bring him the deer
tempts me to collect some road kill for him time to switch insurance companies been with Farm Bureau for 10 years first and only claim and I have to produce a deer post wreck

That’s bull.I was riding in a Volkswagon bug 25 years ago with my mom when a deer ran in front of us and we hit it- stuck on the left front bumper guard was a 3 or 4 pound chunk of the deer. Blood everywhere, and when my uncle tried to track it, he gave up after an hour..Deer never run off my arse.

Sound like you were lucky to get out alive. We were very nearly hit by a horse once; I shudder to think what may of happened if it had actually hit us.

Wow, I came across your blog today as I sit here recuperating from my very nasty run-in with a deer in the rural suburbs outside Greensboro, NC. I was on a narrow two lane highway on a drizzly night. The deer literally leapt out of the thick woods into the road. I never saw the deer on the ground, it was airborne as soon as I saw it, and it landed on my windshield, towards the top where it meets the roof. The deer’s body sheared the roof back about two feet, separating the roof from the windshield. The deer’s body and the roof liner hit me square in the face…amazingly, I only have a very sore bump on my forehead, a sore neck from the jolt, and lots of glass splinters. Nothing I won’t recover from in a few days. I count myself very, very lucky. a few more inches lower, and the windshield would have taken the impact instead of the roof, and I would have no face left. instead, I emerged from the car covered in glass, deer fur and blood, with all three materials in my mouth, hair, and eyes. That was more traumatizing for me than the bump on the head. As for the deer, I never saw it again, the driver behind me said it did two or three full flips over my car, landed in the road, and ran off into the woods. CRAZY. I will never know if it ran off to die, ir if it will heal and live to perform more automobile acrobatics…and that will bother me for a very long time. I am going to install a deer whistle on my next car, as I have heard they are quite effective. Everyone is getting them for Christmas, too! I could get angry about the overpopulation of deer in this area, but then I must remind myself they we live in THEIR world, not vice versa.

It is very sick that you speak in such a way that your silly car is more important than the deers life. Shame on you! Karma is a bitch!

Attn: vegequeen
Is your post directed at me?? I absolutely did not imply that the car is more important than the deer…I even stated that not knowing if the deer is okay will haunt me for a long time. My descriptions of the car’s damage were simply to illustrate how much damage can be done when a deer and a car collide. Actually, I couldn’t care less about the car, and I’m sorry that you feel I was trying to communicate otherwise. The only thing that I truly feel is more important to me than the deer in this situation is my own personal body. If Karma is involved, then I feel justified in saying that it was definitely on MY side that evening, because a few inches or seconds difference in that collision could have very well meant my life. Of course if the deer has died, it is a tragic loss of a beautiful creature. However, if I had been killed, I would have left behind a husband, two teenage boys (one is autistic), my elderly grandparents whom I care for, and a brother who is about to recieve a kidney transplant who needs my care as well. When you consider all of THAT, who really gives a crap about a damn Toyota. I’m quite offended that you would even imply otherwise. Shame on ME??? Shame on YOU for making a horrible event feel even worse with your nasty words.

Attn: vegequeen
ummm…heh heh…*sheepish grin*…I just realized that it makes much more sense that your comment was intended for the author of the article, not to me. If that is the case, I’m VERY sorry for ranting…I suppose I shoud refrain from posting while on Vicodin. Never mind me…I’m just a little traumatized and drugged at the moment. Boy do I feel like an arse. Maybe the powers that be will have mercy on me and not post my last comment and this one.

IN RESPONSE TO:

“Ya know… That’s what they make them… hatcheecallit? Oh yeah, steering wheels.
Ya know… for turning to avoid things like deer?”

That’s what most drivers do…turn sharply to avoid things like animals in the road then they DIE! 95% of accidents are due to over correction. Most people think they are good drivers, and they are, until they have to make a defensive move, at that point most of us are novice at best. Just like any thing else, unless you put time in at a closed track practicing those maneuvers when the time comes you will re-act instead of act. In my case I hit a deer on a turnpike with a posted speed limit of 75 mph. Lucky for me I have 17 years of training driving an emergency vehicle and my training took over. I slowed best I could and squared the animal up and hoped for the best. If Had I swerved like you suggest I would have went into the other lane of traffic and hit another moving vehicle(Bad choice), or the other side I would have hit a concrete divider that was more solid than a deer. either way I could have been a lot worse. So to those that say use the steering wheel and swerve. I say…” I’ll be there to pick up the pieces (and there will be a lot of pieces)when you go head-on into the other cars coming the opposite direction….But at least you saved the deer!”

yo it was crazy ….just last night ….nov 19…2006…a deer ran in to the driver side window of my 95 honda civic coupe…i was freaked out because I was thinking bout somthing else and a face comes and runs in to my driver side window…im like wtf! and the odd thing was that nothing happen to my driver side window but my windshield was damaged… I was thinking if i had the windwo down..that deer would have took my head clean off…..well to end my story I hate deers….I don’t know why we don’t just move them somewhere or kill them off.

Well we ran into a deer coming home from Thanksgiving dinner at my brother’s house. We were on state road 52 in Pasco County in Florida. We were headed home when all of a sudden a deer out of no where ran in front of my car. i just froze. My husband was driving and he was quite upset that we killed the deer. meanwhile my brand new SUV has total front end damage, With all the deer hair stuck in side. It was a shocker. What makes a deer run out like that with headlights blaring all over the place. After the deer just crashed to the ground the police came and he flashed his flashlight at the deer and the deer took off running with 2 legs not working. We thought it was dead. It’s head laid back and it was foaming at the mouth. How can we prevent this from happpening again??? Any suggestions will be welcomed.

When you are in a situation like this, wise guy comments don’t help. It is a scary thing. I was traveling about 55mph. The deer had to come up a small embankment and onto the road. It was running and crossed within feet of my car. I had no time to react, suddenly it was like right there. Hello! Smack. I hit its front section on the drivers side of my car, then it spun around and hit the side of my minivan. I didn’t run over it, in fact when I when I stopped the car and looked back the deer was gone. On speaking to my insurance agent they said I was right not to swerve. I was told it is better to hit the animal than to swerve and risk a bigger collision. I am not saying that I wouldn’t have tried to miss the deer had I had more time to react. I am just sharing what the insurance company told me.

I had been trying to figure out the physics of my accident this week, and this blog came closest to describing at least a little bit.. but I’m still rather lost..

I was driving on a straight away, 55mph, night time, plenty of traffic coming the opposite direction. I only had enough time for fleeting thoughts of recognizing what was suddenly infront of the car (as it happened I was convinced it was a large dog, a golden retriever, seeing the tan furry back - but it was larger than I initially thought)… THWACK - as if I’d blinked, this animal had suddenly turned into a brown blur coming upward, literally exploding up and out… saw pieces forming before my eyes [sending me into hysterics, wtf did I do to this animal?!].. I could just barely recognize that there were pieces forming because it happened so fast. I didn’t see much blood than a couple reddish streaks in the motion.. as gorey as it way, there was nothing but a bit of fur in the broken light assembly.. I braced myself to lose control by running over a large body, but no, felt like pieces from all four wheels. Later it was found a hoof mark was across the upper part of the windshield, contributing to the fact it went past my car above and below…

what’s very strange, was that there wasn’t a single piece of the deer to be found. no blood stains on the road. none on the car. Could it have exploded that much? But how did it if I was only going 55? .. and how did it not come up through my windshield with how low/pointed the car is?

the guy who almost hit it himself turned around and followed me, saying it was definitely not getting up anytime soon.

car was rendered driveless and is out for 3500 to 4500 in repair..

In Connecticut, On the way to work, Tuesday January 2nd, I was driving my ‘05 Elantra at about 50mph in a 45mph zone and managed to slow down to what felt like 35 or so before my driver’s side smacked into the tail end of a deer. She was running extremely fast and came up a small bushy bank from the side of the road (later I was told she was probably running from a buck) which left me just seconds to even think about responding. Until then, I had only hit a couple of squirrels and a Cardinal. I stopped, got out and noticed a guy was parked in the driveway across the road. He got out of his vehicle and ran over to the deer who was trying to pull herself around by the front legs becuase her back legs were so smashed they were like rubber. I was horrified to say the least. The guy next to me says “…should we beat over the head or somethin?” and I kinda chuckled and then ignored the sick bastard? Unfortunately, neither of us carries a gun, which would have been ideal to put her out of her misery. Just a minute later, an Animal Control Officer stopped to help. Less than a minute after that, some guy in an old pickup truck stopped as well. He wanted to take the deer for the meat, I think. Anyway, the deer croaked within 10-15 mins and the State Troopers office said the guy could have the deer as long as it was okay with me since I now OWN the deer. Crazy, huh? The damage to the car didn’t seem all that bad. I am now waiting for the work to get started…

So here’s the damage:
Left headlamp assembly / turn signal, front bumper, grill, hood

Cost: about $2,000.00

Anyway, as for avoiding such accidents, the insurance company says killing an animal is better than killing yourself. Besides, your premiums (insurance costs) are more likely to be raised if you hit a tree than if you hit an animal and make a claim.

We recently hit a deer with our car and sustained 1700 dollars worth of damage of which 1000. we had to pay to meet our deductible. In my thinking, if the state or DNR or whoever regulates deer..charging for a license to hunt the deer and regulating the deer population…in my opinion by doing this they are claiming ownership of the deer, they are making money off of the deer, THEY should be responsible for covering the deductibles at the very least of anyone that sustains damage from hitting a deer. If one of my horses got out and someone hit it, I would be responsible for their damages. Why is this any different? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I tried to swerve (at 60mph) to avoid hitting a box on the road and ended up in the middle of a corn field. But anyway, it inspired me to start a car wreck website (http://www.iwreckedmyride.com) I have my story and pictures of this wreck (first post) and other car wrecks, so check them out.

HEY TO ALL OF YOU STUPID DEER LOVERS ,
YOU PROBABLY BELONG TO SOM ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP ,
LET ME TELL YOU , THERE IS MORE DEER OUT THERE THAN WE NEED SO THEY SHOULD TO BE KILLED IN PROPORTION , SO THE NUMBERS CAN BE CONTROLED , OR DO YOU WANT TO GO AND HAND OUT CONDOMS TO THE DEER SO THEY DONT REPRODUCE SO OFTEN , IN THE PRCESS HOPEFULLY ALL OF YOU THAT LOVE DEER MORE THAN CARS AND YOUR OWN LIFE , HOPEFULLY YOU ARE GOING TO BE ON THE ROAD SLIPPING CONDOMS ON DEER AND , IN THE POLICE REPORT IN WILL SAY , DEER LOVER HIT ,??????
ONE LESS TROUBLE MAKER AROUND , YEAH , HE WENT TO DEER HEAVEN MET RUDOLPH AT FIRY GATES , AND RUDOLPH AND HIS ANGLES SAID ALL OF YOU DEER HUGGING CREATURES, SEND THEM TO THE ROOM WITH ALL THE BUCK ANGLES THAT ARE HORNY AND HAD NOTHING FOR A LONG TIME , IN MY OPINNION YOU ARE WORTH LESS THAN DEER , BECAUSE YOU ARE TEACHING A PHILOSOPHY THAT IS AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE ,YOU GET MY POINT,STUPID ,

This went right over my head