Was coming home last evening from Hanover, NH - about 80 miles from here - visited a friend in the hospital, there. Now, all this happened in maybe 2 or 3 seconds: It was about 9:30 PM - just after dark, zipping along on I-89 at about 75mph, listening to the tunes from the iPod, and I see - directly in front of me - a MOOSE in my lane - walking across the highway . I tapped the brakes to slow; my wife woke up and says "what's that?" - I said "Moose!", I glanced in the left side mirror and quickly steered the MINI around the moose's rear end. By the time I was changing lanes, all I could see was moose legs and my wife said all she saw was the moose's back-end just out her window.

Man, was that ever close! Glad I wasn't driving my Ford F250 - I would never have been able to get out of the way in time. I don't think the MINI is quite short enough to drive under a moose, though.

 

Quick thinking on your part, YAY!!!
That was the one thing that swayed my husband back when we were first looking at/test driving MINIs. He decided rather quickly that you could avoid problems pretty easily in the MINI and got over the smallness of it.

Annette

 

Whew! I think the moose would have won that battle. Nice going on the alert evasive driving.

 

yeah, here's a very good blog on a moose encounter where the driver incredibly only suffered a broken wrist....click here and see the December 21, 2004 posting

There's a funny (adult but not dirty) story at the end too...

 

That is incredible! Glad we only have Deer to worry about.

 

Those moose are hard to see at night. About three years ago I hit one with my MINI. I never reacted at all until after I hit it. I was incredibly lucky and didn't even get a scratch on me. The car had something like $4000 in bodywork needed, and is still running today.

 

Up in northern Aroostook County Maine where I grew up and now visit semi-annually - I seem to always encounter moose running out of the woods onto the roadway. As my Mom always says when I'm driving up "watch out for the moose because they don't have tail lights and reflectors!"

 

whoa Adam , I'll take luck over skill anytime! Glad you had the whiptastic handling of these cars,eh? I have to deal with deer almost every morning on my ride from Newburyport to Wilmingtonat 4:30 AM and I know that the adrenalin rush probably hasn't even subsided yet! I guess that's why they post all those signs all over New Hampshire and Vermont about braking for moose saving your life! "thousands of collisions reported" that stretch of 89 this time of year can be really dangerous , glad you had a good outcome!(unlike Jason's)

 

I was driving back to my cabin in Cripple Creek from Breckenridge. It was snowing and about 6'' of snow pack on the ground. It was really hard to see and I was going about 30 on a 60 MPH road. An Elk that was about 7 ft tall started to walk accross the road. I was in my landrover, so swerving and avoiding was out of the question. I slowed down thanks to the ABS. It was a pretty cool experience because that elk was huge!

Glad to hear you and your wife were able to avoid the moose!

 

did the moose have a full rack... thta would be a disaster.

 

Glad neither of you were hurt.

 

Honestly - it all happened so fast, by the time I was close - I only saw legs. It seemed this thing was as big as a Clydesdale horse!


You bet! In a less nimble vehicle, I'd have had a giant hood ornament - and injuries - who knows...


I was especially alert - figuring I may encounter a deer on the road. About two months ago, my wife was on Route 3, just north of Burlington, MA on her way home from a friend's place. There was a deer right on RT3!

I'm originally from California. The only wildlife that I remember on the roads there had two legs .

 

They had a thing on CNN the other day about how the moose are coming further south this year, and can be regularly seen in the suburbs of Bangor, etc. This: http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.co.../2869001.shtml article is from a town pretty far south. Any idea where you were at the time?

 

I was between Grantham and Lake Sunapee.