Glad I Left NC at Home

[Fuzzy]

Raining all day today so I drove my truck. On wet road with light rain an hour before sunrise I hit a deer. Saw her coming up shoulder and braked hard but still doing I guess around 20 mph when I hit her. Large deer and she went airborne and rolled a half dozen times into the ditch. Need a new bumper as the plastic broke but other than that truck fine. Glad this time I was not on a motorcycle. Might have had needed one vehicle to carry my bike away and another to carry me away.

 

[Grey1one]

yikes .....

 

[Midnight Rider]

Glad to hear you took the truck! Glad you are all right!

 

[drdubb]

lets hear it for the truck!

 

[Old Can Ride]

Coming home in my truck many years ago, when the road to the house was still a dirt road, I saw a big buck running a cross the field. So, I stopped so as not to hit the deer. I stopped the truck, the deer changed direction, jumped the fence, and landed on the hood of my stopped truck causing big time damage to my truck's hood. The buck got up off the ground, looked me straight in the eyes, and head butted my truck's plastic grill. The grill went into a few pieces. While I was trying to get my pistol out from behind the seat, the buck ran away.

If this was not bad enough, when I got home my wife layed into me for wrecking the truck. I could not get my wife to believe what had really happened. While she was still yelling at me, I pulled out some hair the buck had left in the front grill. I clearly showed the buck hair to my wife, but somehow the damage to the truck was still my fault. She went inside still mad at me. Go figure?

 

[scotseam]

Glad you were not hurt. My daughter hit a deer last fall. She was OK but the car had $2000 worth of damage. Maybe deer season should be longer!

 

[kharli]

How was the deer ?and incidentally whats the best way of putting an injured animal out of its misery ? (assuming no gun )

 

[Fuzzy]

How was the deer ?and incidentally whats the best way of putting an injured animal out of its misery ? (assuming no gun )

I didn't stop with no safe place to pull off in dark and rain. Deer thrown 100' or more so likely fatal injuries. She rolled into the ditch. Still raining on way home and ditch deep enough to be hard to see her. Buzzards were not out in wet weather to show location. With fatal injuries a deer will often be able to travel a bit into the woods to rest but never get up again.

No safe way to approach a wounded deer. Without a gun, stay back.

 

[anglachel]

How was the deer ?and incidentally whats the best way of putting an injured animal out of its misery ? (assuming no gun )

I've heard stories from people in northern michigan using anything they had on hand... shovels, axe, baseball bats, hockey sticks, etc.

But hitting a deer up there is as common as catching a stop light in the rest of the country (they out number people something like 3:1)...
it's that they didn't have a gun that is the weird part of those stories (guns in the UP also out number people something like 3:1)...

 

[itlives]

You were probably going faster than 20 mph if the deer was thrown anywhere close to 100'.
Glad you weren't on the NC in any case.

 

[L.B.S.]

Yeesh, glad you weren't a motorcyclist in the news article, Fuzz man!

It's so strange, the universe of day to day or even second to second decisions we all make, turning left instead of right, or choosing car versus bike, or taking that extra moment to tighten your shoelace, and *Wham* Auugh! or: *Whoosh* Near miss!

If you could only see from up above, watch the little moving dots and how they converge at the same point in space/time, collide or veer away, travel parallel paths or be in eccentric orbits, never converging...

Fascinating.

 

[pahondafan]

Glad you're okay Fuzzy.

 

[pahondafan]

Coming home in my truck many years ago, when the road to the house was still a dirt road, I saw a big buck running a cross the field. So, I stopped so as not to hit the deer. I stopped the truck, the deer changed direction, jumped the fence, and landed on the hood of my stopped truck causing big time damage to my truck's hood. The buck got up off the ground, looked me straight in the eyes, and head butted my truck's plastic grill. The grill went into a few pieces. While I was trying to get my pistol out from behind the seat, the buck ran away.

If this was not bad enough, when I got home my wife layed into me for wrecking the truck. I could not get my wife to believe what had really happened. While she was still yelling at me, I pulled out some hair the buck had left in the front grill. I clearly showed the buck hair to my wife, but somehow the damage to the truck was still my fault. She went inside still mad at me. Go figure?

You're wife has good instincts; I don't believe that story either.

 

[SergeantChuck]

It's that time of year. I've found myself using my high beams a lot more the last month. Been worried about a deer jumping out at me. Glad your Ok.

Now back to the other comments. Baseball bats and hockey sticks? Good Lord. I'm all about putting an animal down but that is a little extreme. It's one thing to shoot an injured animal or cut a vital artery with an axe but beat it to death with a baseball bat? Dang. Those people might need help and these comments are from an infantryman that fought two tours in Iraq and saw some messed up crap.


Anyway, glad your Ok, Fuzzy.

 

[Fuzzy]

Thinking about my incident the last couple days I probably could have avoided the accident. The deer came up to the side of the road obviously interested in crossing. I slowed when I saw it and at some point quit slowing thinking the deer had decided to stay put. When it made it's dash across the road it was too late for me to fully stop. Slowing down for a deer eating on the side of the road is prudent. One obviously waiting to cross deserved more respect from me. Regretfully I failed to notice my dash cam unplugged or I would have video to show.

Hopefully my experience can help others avoid a similar or even worse fate.

 

[showkey]

So where does your state rank? Here's a list, from the highest risk to the least:

West Virginia: 1 in 41.91

Iowa: 1 in 67.09

Michigan: 1 in 70.36

South Dakota: 1 in 75.81

Montana: 1 in 82.45

Pennsylvania: 1 in 84.63

North Dakota: 1 in 91.11

Wisconsin: 1 in 95.68

Arkansas: 1 in 99.24

Minnesota: 1 in 99.51

Virginia:1 in 101.97

Nebraska: 1 in 110.60

Wyoming: 1 in 114.49

Maryland: 1 in 118.75

Ohio: 1 in 121.09

Mississippi: 1 in 131.35

Missouri: 1 in 133.88

South Carolina: 1 in 137.21

New York: 1 in 145.45

North Carolina: 1 in 147.27

Delaware: 1 in 149.86

Georgia: 1 in 149.88

Alabama: 1 in 150.32

Indiana: 1 in 159.61

Kentucky: 1 in 161.12

Vermont: 1 in 170

Kansas: 1 in 172.12

New Jersey: 1 in 182.75

Maine: 1 in 215.48

Tennessee: 1 in 217.83

Illinois: 1 in 218.45

Oklahoma: 1 in 245.35

Idaho: 1 in 249.18

Utah: 1 in 266.43

Oregon: 1 in 286.53

Louisiana: 1 in 288.45

New Hampshire: 1 in 299.49

Connecticut: 1 in 320.37

Rhode Island: 1 in 345.34

Colorado: 1 in 365.72

Alaska: 1 in 385.27

Texas: 1 in 399.97

Massachusetts: 1 in 452.34

Washington: 1 in 474.46

New Mexico: 1 in 606.78

District of Columbia: 1 in 747.47

Florida: 1 in 971.47

California: 1 in 1045.61

Nevada: 1 in 1,488.08

Arizona: 1 in 1,788.47

 

[SergeantChuck]

I am surprised Illinois is so far down the list. I only lived there for 7 years but saw triple the amount of dead deer on the side of the road compared to what I have seen in Arkansas. In Arkansas I see dead hawks more than I see deer which is something I rarely saw in Illinois.

 

[kpinvt]

Thinking about my incident the last couple days I probably could have avoided the accident. The deer came up to the side of the road obviously interested in crossing. I slowed when I saw it and at some point quit slowing thinking the deer had decided to stay put. When it made it's dash across the road it was too late for me to fully stop. Slowing down for a deer eating on the side of the road is prudent. One obviously waiting to cross deserved more respect from me. Regretfully I failed to notice my dash cam unplugged or I would have video to show.

Hopefully my experience can help others avoid a similar or even worse fate.

One thing I try to remember whenever I see one deer on the side of the road is they usually have some of their friends nearby. If one is crossing the road there may be others following closely behind.

 

[Chestnut]

Glad you're okay and the bike was safety tucked in at home.

 

[L.B.S.]

It's funny, I don't know if we don't have very many deer in BC comparatively, or what. I always see deer on every trip I ever take, but in all my years riding, I've only had one single time where there was actual fear of a close call or hit. And at that, it was a deliberate action by the critter, not an accidental or panicked blind run or evasion, blundering into my path.

It was a big ol' Whitetail buck with ginormous antlers, who charged at me with much malice aforethought, trying to hook me off my bike and gore me to pulp. My buddy riding along on his bike behind me, said he thought for sure the ornery thing was going to catch me on the neck, and tear me right off my bike, lol