mgw4jc

Not me, but fairly close to where I live...

Doctor Morbius

Poor animal. I didn't need to see that.

indyfabz

Glad I can't watch videos at work.

I nearly hit a deer back in 2013. Came right out of the woods one morning while I was descending during a cross-PA tour. Crazy thing is that I was really tired from not getting much uninterrupted sleep the night before and had just said to myself "Stay frosty. You never know what might come out of those woods." Not 3 seconds later the thing came bounding out of the woods from my right. A mile or two per hour faster and I could have been toast.

rumrunn6

wow, talk about an action shot. yeah very sad for the poor guy tho. amazing video

saw a police officer "put one down" on the Merritt Pkwy. had a line of cars stopped behind him. heard the shot just as I passed in the opposite direction in my car. sad

wphamilton

Slow reactions, but that probably turned out better for the cyclist than if he did react. I'd have been off the road where Red Jersey was or further off in the grass, maybe crashing.

VegasTriker

Just hope you never hit one with your car. The damage it can do to a car is $$$$$. I just missed one myself in the mountains of southern Utah a couple of years ago. They are not the brightest animal on the planet and darned unpredictable. It's just that there are more of them these days than any time in the past so more chances to hit one. There are no natural predators in most parts of the US so their numbers continue to increase. When I was a kid, the cook at our summer camp in rural NJ hit one and it peeled the car roof back a good ways and destroyed the windshield. By some miracle the cook was not hurt.

joelcool

I've had enough encounters with deer that I no longer care about the ones that get clobbered (sorry). For every one of them there's 100 more in the woods, waiting in line. Sometimes they get in an opening and the only thing they can think to do is run straight and fast.

Glad it didn't take out a cyclist or hurt anyone, looks like it was pretty close.

justtrying

REDMASTA

who put that car there

rumrunn6

was driving to VT last Friday night in the dark. Wifey likes to ride w her feet on the dash. kept warning her if we hit a deer her knee is gonna be pushed into her skull by the airbag. when she put her legs down (briefly) I also told her to be ready to duck. funny a duck would protect you from a deer

TrojanHorse

I used to think I could avoid a deer (while driving) if I were paying attention but my own experience and that video completely disproves it. Deer have a death wish.

I hit one on I-80 outside of Salt Lake City. Damn deer changed 3 lanes to hit me and all I could do was cuss (while standing on the brake.)

Cyclist0108

We've had 2 deer strikes in our car, at ~25mph. They just appear out of hyperspace. Each time it did $3K worth of damage to the car. It is good to have the insurance rider (and the claims are like natural disasters -- it doesn't jack up your rate). When I hit mine, it horizontal danced on the road for a few seconds while I was trying to figure out what the hell to do next, and then it got up and bolted. I was in denial about the damage until I got home and saw most of the front end was damaged. My wife had a similar experience about a year later. They just jump off from a hillside and appear with zero time to react.

A colleague hit one on a local bike path while on his bicycle, which got totaled, and it put him in the hospital.

CliffordK

Whew, that was fast.

If I see wildlife that a car following me may not see, I try to signal (such as putting my hand out for stop). But, in the case of the video above, there is not much the cyclists could have done. No warning.

Clyde1820

Just today, on a two-lane road I had a car in the opposite lane jet out from behind a car on a blind 50mph corner (doing ~70mph or so) in an attempt to pass. Just as the lead car was approaching me, so that following car had no clue I was there. Missed me by about 10ft or so. Was going 50mph (in the car) and he was attempting a ~70mph pass. That would have left a mark. Had I been on the bike, very likely the oncoming passer never would have seen me until it was too late.

Whew.

BTW, I've seen a couple of cars/trucks damaged by striking elk. Not pretty. Not generally survivable, from what I've seen, if those few crashes were any indication of what's typical when striking one of those at highway speeds.

CAT7RDR

Driving from LA to Fort Collins, CO I tucked in behind Wally's trucks at 80 mph on I-70 after seeing an elk takeout the front of a pickup around Grand Junction. I understand it is common in Colorado to harvest what you hit.

berner

Elk are quite big. Same with moose/auto encounters in New Hampshire. The roads there are posted with many warming signs claiming hundreds of crashes each year and drivers continue to zip along at their normal speed both day and night. While we can agree that ruminants may not be that bright, what are we to make of the humans. Are we smarter than the deer and moose we run into or not?

Cyclist0108

I just remembered, I also had a deer run smack right into our minivan ... fortunately there was very little damage. Perhaps this was because the car was parked.

There really aren't a lot of Nobel Prizes given out to deer.

REDMASTA

dedhed

The trouble with elk & moose is their long legs put them over the front of the car and right up the hood into the windshield.

ksryder

A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"

02Giant 

That deer looks dazed.

GrainBrain

Perfect.

After being accustomed to deer here, I was shocked to get close to an elk accidently while hiking in the Rockies. Ginormous. You can also request tags here from an officer at the site of a deer strike. I got to eat delicious venison after our plant manager was behind a vehicle that struck a deer.

​​​​​​​I've had over ten close encounters on my bike with deer in the last two years! Once I spooked a large group huddling in a field just off the road, luckily there was good visibility and the oncoming vehicles stopped.

wphamilton

I've had over ten in the last two days! Fortunately they're almost all used to bicycles whizzing by and don't startle that much.

sdmc530

GeneO 

Not funny - any living being killed. Glad no human was hurt.