[jhein]

We were out driving yesterday and sadly watched a complete idiot hit a young fawn.

It was Sunday so there were way more cars out on the backroads than normal (which is why I rarely drive on the weekends). Anyway, I'm following pretty far behind a guy on a two lane country road. He starts braking and I notice some deer in the road ahead of him. We both slow to a stop. Now there is a fawn in front of his car and a doe and a fawn in the oncoming lane. The doe and fawn #2 are facing to my left, away from the other fawn, who is facing to my right, away from the other two. Now driver #3 comes up on us in the oncoming lane. Slows to about 5-10 mph but doesn't stop. Now he's about 10-12 feet away from the deer. The doe and fawn #1 are now slowly moving off the road. As he gets closer apparently he thinks he's good so he accelerates. As soon as he does that fawn #1 does a 180 and moves toward the dow and fawn #1 directly into the path of driver #3 and gets hit. It was knocked down and I think had at least broken rear leg. It was trying to get up but couldn't. It was in a fair amount of distress which was unpleasant to watch. I wasn't sure what to do. The guy in front of me drove off. There was now a car behind me. The guy who hit the deer was getting out of his vehicle, as was the guy behind me. Even though my impulse was to get out and end it's suffering, I decided that under the circumstances, with these other people there and the fact that I was unclear on relative laws, I decided to leave.

I have since looked up the laws in my State and it is legal here to humanely kill an injured/crippled animal. But, other laws come into play too related to discharging a firearm and so forth and even though it's legal, they discourage it and then if you do kill the animal, you're still supposed to call police. Anyway, I assume they called 911 or something and got help.

So the whole thing really sucked. I know deer get hit all the time but this one was so easily avoidable it was ridiculous. I have no idea why driver #3 didn't just stop and wait for them to move.

[dataway]

Yep, always a tough thing to see.

I was sitting at this very same computer desk about 2am 10 years ago when I hear two gun shots right on the road in front of my house. Turn on the outside lights and go outside, a deputy Sheriff had dispatched an injured deer 30 feet from my front windows. He was quite upset and asking me where he should have shot him, how long it takes for them to die ... by the time the questions were asked the deer had died.

[jhein]

What's legal and what's right are not always the same.

And yes, many of these brave young people we have providing law enforcement services for us are not always that experienced. But they're good people and will learn. Aren't we all better at what we do now than before? I hope so.

[Greg Reid]

I have hit three and had many near misses. I don't think I'll ever hit one again (if I can see it) because I'll come to a stop if possible. You can have a pretty good idea of which way they are going to go if you know their habits. In that case the driver should have known that the fawn was going to follow the doe. If they are near the street in someone's front yard and there are woods across the street, there's a good chance that they're going to run in front of you to get to those woods.
If I'm driving at night out here in the country and my headlights light up a few deer on the side of the road I will usually come to a crawl and turn my headlights off for two or three seconds. When I turn them back on the deer will be gone. That kinda stuff.

[jhein]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

I have hit three and had many near misses. I don't think I'll ever hit one again (if I can see it) because I'll come to a stop if possible. You can have a pretty good idea of which way they are going to go if you know their habits. In that case the driver should have known that the fawn was going to follow the doe. If they are near the street in someone's front yard and there are woods across the street, there's a good chance that they're going to run in front of you to get to those woods.
If I'm driving at night out here in the country and my headlights light up a few deer on the side of the road I will usually come to a crawl and turn my headlights off for two or three seconds. When I turn them back on the deer will be gone. That kinda stuff.

Thankfully, neither my wife or I have ever hit a deer. And considering where we've lived and driven, that's kind of hard to believe. But like you, we've had lots of close calls. and I expect one day my luck will come to an end. And you're right, once you get used to their behavior, you can often predict what they will do, just like in this case with the fawn following the doe.

I remember about a year ago my vision got to the point that I started needing glasses to drive at night. About a week after that I was driving home one night on a 4 lane state road in the rain. Coming around a curve 4-5 deer just appeared moving across the road from the right. I saw them just in time to slow down and swerve slightly to miss them. I'm pretty sure that without the glasses I would not have seen them in time.

[Radman]

I have hit one deer so far. Company van, traveling on the interstate. I am in the right lane 70 MPH. My lane was higher than the oncoming lane, so the only thing to my left is the guard rail. Until I see a deer in the air jumping the guard rail. I had enough time to say "Oh", the deer had enough time to get one hoof on the pavement. Then the left headlight and fender connected with it's head. It spun down the entire left side of the van. Not one panel was clean or undented after that. Normal two lane I have avoided a lot of them.

[hurryinhoosier62]

I’ve never hit a deer or fawn, which sounds nearly impossible since we live in one of the counties in IN with the highest number of deer/auto incidents each year. Some people simply regard deer as a nuisance to driving; people like me see every deer killed as a failure in IN DNR’s deer population control efforts. No animal should have to die in such a traumatic way. By comparison, hunting is nearly humane since the carcass is going to be consumed by humans rather than by scavengers.

[Greg Reid]

I mentioned that I've hit three, well my wife has been hit BY three. All three smashed into the side of her car. In one case a state trooper witnessed it and while he was assisting her another driver came up and asked the trooper if he could have the deer! The trooper told him to take it if he wanted it.

[Dave R]

I hit a deer after years of avoiding them and narrow misses as they’re everywhere around here including the garden. It was dark and I’m driving home doing around 50 mph when one leaped of the 10 foot bank to my right. I hit the brakes and swerved hard left as it landed front feet on the pavement. Thought I would just miss it but it’s forward momentum carried it into the right front corner and the impact put me up on two wheels so I cranked hard right and slammed down and spun to a stop. The deer was killed instantly, my Volvo 740 was written off due to suspension damage (as that was deemed unfixable) and I had a concussion and spinal injury.

The swerving was pure reflex and it was fortunate that nobody was coming towards me. If I’d hit the deer head on, it likely would have come through the windshield as the 740 is pretty low. A local chef got the meat.

[Lemans64]

Seen a bad one a few years ago, coming home from a car show with 2 newer SUV's in front of me, something spooked a deer on the side road
so he ran and jumped over the guard rail and another jump over the suv in slow lane right into the suv in fast lane on right front corner.
Poor deer didn't have a chance, he flew about 15 feet into the air and must have spun at least 3-4 times, landing on the road, what a mess.
Damaged the suv quite bad, scared the crap out the people in the suv. Young passenger had just closed the window before they hit the deer on that side.
Have also seen the remnants of deer going thru the windshield in a Full size Van, it was still alive and trying to get out, inside of commercial van was
a big mess.

[66sprint6]

We hit one driving from Edmonton to Ft. McMurray, AB. It wasn't a Bambi either, it was a large mule deer. No time to react. We were driving a 1965 Impala and it pushed the whole front sheet metal, core support, rad, fan, etc. into the engine. Back then, it was really quiet in Alberta and no one came along for hours. We stood there freezing our asses off in the middle of winter. I still felt bad for the deer, though. That was in 1984 and the insurance company fixed the car.