Well, I was going on a country road two days ago. Due to pollution control, the speed limit is reduced from 100 kph to 80 kph. The father of my girlfriend takes that way at least twice a day for over 35 years, and never ever encountered any does there. And how should he? 200 metres to the right there is a river, two hundred meters to the left, there is a highway and a railway, and no just fields on both sides in between. On the right hand side, there also is a 4 metres high, quite steep slope. So all in all, the last place you'd expect a doe to cross the street.
Additionally, time being 12:55 high noon, and not dusk or dawn, it was the most uncommon time for does to show up.
All that didn't help preventing 3 fully grown does to rush up the slope and cross the street right in front of my car. Well, only two of them crossed, actually, but one ran right into my car, leaving me no time to react, brake or whatever.

So I hit it with full 80 kph, first impact here:

Klick, large image

Now that doesn't look too bad, does it? But as said before, I was going 80 kph. After the initial contact, it landed here:

Klick, large image

We were really lucky. A few inches lower and the doe would have gone right through the windshield, hitting and seriously injuring my girlfriend and me.
As it was, only a leg of the miserable doe penetrated the windshield, hitting my girlfriend on her upper arm. Thank god, it only resulted in a huge, yet basically harmless haematoma. Additionally, both of us sustained tiny cuts from shrapnel of the windshield on our hands and faces, and I took some additional minor injury on my fingers where the doe + windshield crashed on my hands on the steering wheel. But nothing that needed actual medical treatment, except x-raying my girlfriends arm. As we both wore sunglasses, our eyes did not take any harm.
The doe, quite luckily, was dead instantly, and didn't bleed at all. Allthough it sprayed the whole inside of the car, and ourselves, full of fur, leaving us choking up doe-hair for about half an hour.

Here's a totale of my totalled car:


Klick, large image

As it is, allthough I have not sustained any head injury, it all went so fast that I have absolutely no recollection of the crash. I remember driving along the road and my gf suddenly yelling "Reh" ("doe" in german), and the next thing is that the car is halted with already activated warning lights at the quite narrow promenade between the road and the slope, looking at my girlfriend who was screaming in terror at what happened.
I myself was actually quite calm, knowing exactly what to do, like checking the mirror (the inside mirror was a goner) for traffic before exiting the car and then immediately securing the site and checking my GF for any injuries, knowing that asking her wouldn't suffice as she didn't feel anything due to shock.

Examining the crash site, I felt really lucky. Seemingly I calmly halted and parked the car without endangering any following traffic, as I have seen no skid marks. Reassuring me that I acted calmily was also the fact that I didn't hit any of the small posts at the side of the street when parking the car, and did not drop down the 4 metres slope.
I was so glad that I din't lose control and either crashed down or into oncoming traffic of that highly frequented road.

The doe itself was some 30 metres behind the first pieces of glass, on the other side of the road, thankfully not hitting any other cars.

Ouch I'm glad to hear you're both ok though

Those can be quite nasty, have seen pics where whole animal has cut half and internals have been inside car, very dangerous too even animal is not too large or very heavy unlike moose. Those can happen very suddenly to road too, without using brains at all it feels sometimes, if odds are against then it is not possible to see before accident happens.

Glad to hear you both got away from that with so small injuries

Reminds me of my uncle's accident several years ago. He hit a boar full speed ahead and because car weren't built to be safe back then there was massive damage to the car. Funny thing: He was lucky wearing his seatbelt while his co-driver was lucky not wearing his seatbelt, because during the accident he got thrown out the car. And guess where the boar was...
Anyway, lucky you were driving a fairly new car and nobody (well except the doe) got hurt

Well, I wouldn't call it "quite new". It's (or rather was, if a mate of mine who's a mechanic deems it beyond his abilities) a 14 year old corolla, allthough well preserved.

If it was any newer, I guess the damage to the car would be a lot more sever, as newer cars are build a lot less stiff to absorb more energy on impact.
So if it would have been a newer car, the doe propably wouldn't have been propelled into the windshield, but could have damaged the right front of the car to an extent where it might have become uncontrollable...

At least some good can come out of it...Venison for dinner!! (yum yum! )

Glad that you and GF are OK tho, just hope the doe had insurance!

aww

I'll go doe-proof my car...just in case I hit any...
in other news: Im Happy you all are ok...that is quite an amount of luck involved

Glad you and your lady friend are ok.

And the thread title deserves an award.

consider yourself lucky, and your car at that, thats not much damage at all

if i still had the picture (i think its on my dad's computer actually..) i have a picture from an underground ferrari workshop at the ferrari dealership near me, and its all beat up and then hanging from the center mirror it has a tag number and say "deer killer"

Back when my brother was a chef he was working in a pub and put venison and rabbit pie on the menu, so up on the chalk board he put 'bambi & thumper pie'.

Children cried, the health inspector was called, and he was in the local newspapers.

He killed bambi.

Oh deer.

Glad your ok =) that could have gone really bad =)

Glad to here you guys are alright.

I'm from northwestern Pennsylvania, US. Deer are everywhere. Nearly every time we are out in the car somewhere, my wife will holler "Deer!" She is the deer lookout when we are driving. At night, you are bound to see at least 1 deer on the road somewhere in your travels every time you go anywhere.

My first hit with a deer was similar to yours where it hit and was thrown up onto the windshield while I was driving 60 mph (90 kph?). Nothing happened amazingly. The car was my first brand new car I had ever bought and it was only 2 weeks old. I think I had 500 miles on it. The curvature of the windshield saved any damage and it jumped right before impact, so I only took out the back legs causing it to flip on the windshield. The deer ran off somewhere (could have died later, I don't know) and the next day I found a half inch scratch on the hood. That's all the damage there was.

Ten years later and the second deer jumped out from behind a tree on the way to work at 5 am. I had no time to react again and hit it square at 60 mph again. That one was in the 88 Toyota 4Runner and completely destroyed the front end. It was an old truck, paid for, and not worth much so it sat in my driveway for about a year. I finally picked up a front end from a scrapyard and put it back together.

One week later, yes, one week and yet another deer jumped down off a bank on the side of the road. This time it hit the front tire (31 inch BFG All-Terrains with a wheel offset that stuck out past the fenders about 2 inches). No damage to the truck luckily, especially since I had just gotten it fixed from the last deer.

Yea, you have to watch for deer around where I'm at. They are everywhere. You probably have a bigger chance at getting hit by lightning than not hitting a deer sometime during your entire lifetime you are driving.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

Now that doesn't look too bad, does it? But as said before, I was going 80 kph. After the initial contact, it landed here:

Klick, large image

At first i thought i would soon see some very very sad pictures of poor Bambi...

Quote from XCNuse :

consider yourself lucky, and your car at that, thats not much damage at all

Tbh, don't know what it's like in Austria but here, the car at that age would probably be written off. Someone rolled there car and smashed the side of our Passat in as they flipped. The damage sustained to the car was just the two driver side doors and front driver side panel. My Dad said when he saw it that the car would be a write off and indeed it was. Would have been a bit newer than ColeusRattus car.

Deers are a pest, I live in the countryside so there is often a few about. I still remember when some woman in front of my Dad hit a deer and it got jammed under her car as she came to a stop. My Dad stopped to see if she was alright and after she hesitantly (was a bit of a mess) looked at it said something like, "You think I can reverse off it?", my Dad was like . He managed to convince her trying to reverse with the deer still alive under the car wouldn't be the best option. Just couldn't believe someone would even think of trying that, the car was in a pretty bad state and the deer was well jammed. We had left before the police arrived, would hate to have been the person who had to tidy that mess up.

Keiran

oh yea i mean.. once you get to animals over the size of an average dog they start becomming destructive

i dont exactly know how/why this happened, but one night comming back from Alabama on some highway, a friend of my sister hit a cow.. yes.. a cow on a highway, i can't remember if the cow survived, but i do know that her car was completely totalled... its not good

i actually almost hit a deer the other night, it scared the crap out of me when i saw it on the side of the road (even with my brights on i didn't see it :S)

Quote from XCNuse :

oh yea i mean.. once you get to animals over the size of an average dog they start becomming destructive

i dont exactly know how/why this happened, but one night comming back from Alabama on some highway, a friend of my sister hit a cow.. yes.. a cow on a highway, i can't remember if the cow survived, but i do know that her car was completely totalled... its not good

i actually almost hit a deer the other night, it scared the crap out of me when i saw it on the side of the road (even with my brights on i didn't see it :S)

Well, that was in Alabama, does it really surprise then?

These are very nasty indeed, have had quite many situations as those are next to impossible see at dark and specially with our stupid laws, can't have proper spots in car
Last time it was few days after Christmas when that thing jumped on road, it was dark and I just and just managed to avoid that, road was bit slippery so I had really trouble keeping car under control, but thanks to LFS and RL training I did know to do right tricks. Had whole family on board too.

More than 10 times I have been in situation where I have needed to avoid those, sure I have plenty of mileage too, but still it is bit scary, can't help thinking when it is that I don't see it enough early.

Have been thinking that with all this luck I have had with accidents and close accident situations I could have won in lottery few times already, but then I would been dead so not much fun in that either

lol a moose... actually a friend of mine at school says he knows someone that hit a moose (from up north)

Quote :

jumped on road

uhhuh.. im sure it did

Quote from XCNuse :

uhhuh.. im sure it did

Well they do...well, if you can tell if they are running or jumping as they are so tall animals it's hard to tell, but that doesn't really matter when you hit one. Tt will make a big mess landing on your windshield or on to your roof.

on the bright side... you are still alive, and you didnt get covered in 50kilo's of blood and guts like so many people who've hit deer.

we have TONS of deer here... i have seen some gruesome stuff lol.

the pensylvania/nj area has tons of deer.

ColeusRattus - is your car actually totalled? A new light cover, windscreen and most of the damage is gone. Not so sure about the dent in the roof but couldn't that be beaten out?

Quote from Gabkicks :

we have TONS of deer here... i have seen some gruesome stuff lol.

the pensylvania/nj area has tons of deer.

Same where I used to live, in Wisconsin. It is so bad during the rut, that I knew of a few people who would carry .22 rifles on them, in case they encountered a dying deer so it could be put out of its misery. Ive done it before too; the deer panic and run as fast as they can even with broken limbs, until they fall or get exhausted. One .22 bullet through the eye means a peaceful death. In my opinion of course.

Good to see you're both alright with only minor injuries. Car didn't look bad fromt he first shot, but even before seeing the second photo I had an idea of what had happened. Nice title

The only thing that can jump out here are roos which are also deadly, mostly in country areas at night. When travellign interstate you see a lot of them on the side of the road hit by trucks with their huge bull bars.

A very similar thing happened to my mother some years ago, she hit a moose which tried to jump out of the way or something and it hit the top of the windshield. The car only needed a new windshield and new paint on the part above the front wheel (the moose legs scratched it apparently).