OK, being originally from Alabama (BUT I do deserve extra credit for leaving to do IT work...)I feel justified in imparting a little soutrhern wisdom that really helped me out this morning on my way to work. AT 6:00 this morning I'm on my usual route in to work when,you guessed, it a deer runs across the road right in front of me:
1) You rarely see just one deer cross a road, there's usually 2 or more. I get a bity closer and said deer is halfway across my lane almost 3/4 of the way to clear. YEP! The following one entered the roadway at this exact instant!
2) The obvious real help to me was the old adage "You cannot hit a deer with your car if you aim at the deer intentionally!" SO, when Bambi #2 makes his/her charge across the road toward my lane of travel I downshifted to 5th and accelerated briskly aimed directly at the rear hindquarters of deer #1. You guessed it, I split the difference between both deer and emerged unscratched. Was a little surprised I didn't have any nose prints from deer #2 on my driver's side window...still, it woke me up better than a cup of coffee!

 

Moving from Off Topic to MINI Talk.

 

Danke

 

risky manuver glad you're ok. My one encouter was a solitary deer walking away for me in the brush (no eyes or seeing this deer until it was too late) it heard me and charged the road, swirved wooosh, get home to find my passenger door lock (thats right befoer my MINI) full of deer fur, otherwise not a scratch. I like to think the MINI has better handling and it would have been a clear miss.

Be careful out there; glad you're ok.

 

I've hit three deer in my time, all of them between 2000 and 2002 when I was living in north Austin (360 & Spicewood Springs if you know the area).

Hits 1 & 2 were in a Land Rover Defender, which had a custom thin profile bumper on the front made of 1/4" steel. The deer in the hill country have a nasty habit of jumping into the road just as you pass, so there was no hope of dodging. Thankfully, when push came to shove, it was the bumper that did the pushing without damage to me or the vehicle.

Hit # 3 came in an Acura 3.2 TL. Again, a deer leapt out about twenty feet in front of me. I did what I could, but when you're going 50 the distance closes fast. Deer met Acura. Once I got pulled over (thank god it didn't come up on the hood), expecting horrific carnage on the front end. Somehow, the only damage was a busted foglight.

My friends all joked that I should start putting "kill" badges on my driver door, but haven't hit one, or been in a similar situation, since.

 

`

 

 

Kamikaze, Vampire, Road Terrorists they are. Hate them more than anything in the world. Stay off the road between dusk and dawn...



Don't ask me how I know



Deer are the primary reason I bought the Mini in the first place... a bit safer than two wheels and almost as much fun. Not a month ago, I came within inches of testing it - w/only 1k miles on my Mini.

Hate to say this, but it's only going to get worse....clicky

 

Saw a dead deer on the side of the road last night on the way home from FedEx. No idea what hit it to kill it. Just lying there.

 

I actually had a friend who was jealous because I had a more successful deer season with my vehicle than he did with his rifle.

All of this reminds me of something from my days living in Nashville...when the state legislature passed a law allowing people to pick up, take home, and eat animals that they hit with their vehicles....

 

We don't eat the WHOLE road kill........we use parts of it to decorate our homes.

 

My toll over the past three years (in my now sold '02 Jeep Wrangler):

Two deer
One turkey, unfrozen, (flew into my windshield) talk about a surprise!

I see deer (mostly alive, many dead) almost every single day on my 46 mile one way commute up and down the Palisades Interstate Parkway in NY. The past couple of trips have featrued one live coyote and one dead one.

 

My daily commute is at times a slalom between the bambi bits on the highway. They're dropping like flies up here.

Last month a turkey flew into my girlfriends passenger door and busted the mirror off. A couple days later we watched a turkey up ahead on the highway walk across our lane, through the median, and then stepped out directly in front of a Durango. Poof. Turkey casserole.

Animals are dumb.

 

One day not too long ago I had just turned off of a major road here at around 4:00 PM and just after I turned, a deer ran out right in front of me. Luckily she kept going and got out of the way and I was in a 25 mph zone, but I couldn't believe that this happened where and when it did. Especially looking at the 2003 Ohio numbers, 4:00 PM was the lowest number of incidents.

 

When I lived in NJ there were always tons of deer out on the roads. My worst encounter was when one jumped off an embankment right onto my hood/passenger side fender (luckily I was driving an old beater car at the time). I nailed the brakes, the deer flew forward & landed on the road with it's neck broken. I drove home to check the damage, came back 20 minutes later, the deer was gone. Someone probably ate well that night

 

sndwave double-tired (thank goodness) a wild turkey on the Dragon last week. Those are BIG birds! He was fortunate to have run it over, as if he'd hit it wrong, he'd have damaged his aerokit, I'm sure. Wild turkeys were in great abundance, moreso than in previous trips to the Dragon area.

 

living in PA we get tons of deer, turkeys, rabbits, possums and raccoons in the road. so far the Mini and i have had to dodge one turkey that was hell bent on assassination (that thing looked like a huge roadrunner streaking across the road!). no damage except for my spilling hansen's energy drink all over the place LOL other than that i have seen lots of deer on the sides of the road (alive and dead) and swerved around several smushed possums and raccoons

i've been in PA for 8 years now (originally from sunny Honolulu) and have yet to hit a deer (knock on wood). a few years ago while driving in our old beater mercury sable, we passed a flock of deer (or a herd of deer...guess flock is for birds, huh?). there were about 8 of them running parrallel to the road. they started to turn into the road, the hubby began to brake, all but one of them swerved away and darn it if one lone deer didn't jump completely OVER our car! it was like a scene from the matrix watching that animal bound over us. we got home and there wasn't even a hoof/paw/foot mark on the hood! hehehe

i can't say i would try aiming at a deer next time it runs across the road but i can say i'm glad you got away unscathed!

 

We do get some deer here, but the big danger are the elk. Last weekend coming home from Phoenix we saw three separate herds of several dozen each. Thankfully all waay off to the side, but it's pretty common to see them closer, or dead on the roadside. Don't want to think about what hitting one of these at 80mph would do...

 

I had the same 2 deer experience: I wiped the **** of #1 with driver mirror and the nose of #2 with passeger mirror. 10 pm, Pennsylvania Poconos.

Oh YEAH that woke me up.