So, what can a driver obeying all traffic laws, well within the speed limit or at a dead stop in broad dayiight do to avoid a broadside from a deer???
Incidents I described were NOT in a heavily rural area but suburbia to mainly small farm areas with a few in heavily populated areas. Did not share this one but there was one young buck who ended up in a supermarket and raced out the front door right into the side of an SUV crawling along at 5mph-drivers fault?
If a deer flies out and runs into the side of your vehicle obviously you canât avoid that. You also didnât hit it.
Hitting it with your front bumper is a different situation, just like hitting anything else in the road.
A speed âlimitâ as per the sign, isnât necessarily a âlimitâ. It is the maximum safe allowable speed on that particular road under perfect conditions.
Obviously nothing is perfect, so factoring in other circumstances( such as vehicle condition, also driver condition/limitations, lighting whether real or artificial, weather, condition of the road and yes the possibility of wildlife, livestock , pets, even children entering the roadway) often the actual safe speed is lower than the posted speed. Of course everyone has to be in a hurry and going over whatâs posted, God forbid we go under it.
Iâm trying to bite my tongue, but 
God forbid we ever just admit that sometimes bad things happen to good people.
I am just trying to figure out how slow I should be driving to work in the morning, in the dark, on roads that sometimes have deer crossing them.
You should probably walk.
[quote=âtrubandloki, post:209, topic:805258â]
I am just trying to figure out how slow I should be driving to work in the morning, in the dark, on roads that sometimes have deer crossing them
[/quote] 
You know, I think I was going ~20mph in the dark on my road when the black bear cub came bursting out of the woods, hit my right front bumper, bounced off and continued running to the other side of the road. Imagine if I had been walking and got run over by a black bear! 
In all seriousness, it was so disorienting to have a bear run into the car, but he was just fine and continued to pop up around the house with his family the rest of that season.
Doing some math in my head here.
Walking at 3mph would make my commute would only take me a little over five hours.
Five hours there, five hours homeâŠthat does not leave many hours for working.
But you are right, anything faster than that is just too dangerous.
Power walking would probably be unsafe.
And you would be sweaty when you arrived at work.
I had a bicyclist decide to cross a 6 lane roadway. I was at the light on a multi lane side street that merges onto the highway. The light turns green, I came around the corner in the far outside lane and here comes the bike on my left. I freeze while my head started doing the math. If I brake, he will be in front of me. And that was all I had time to do. The bicyclist nearly ran into the passenger side door and went behind my car. I didnât see him until he was on the road heading towards my car. He was hidden behind all the traffic stopped at the light.
Iâm sure he saw the traffic was clear and didnât take into account the merge. Could have been a dead bicyclist.
Nice 
. Unnecessary. If you really do live in the middle of 40000 acres you can choose to drive on your property however you like, but you should really understand how silly you sounded when you said a deer/vehicle accident on a public road is always completely avoidable.
Ok
I thought of this thread this morning as I ever so carefully drove to work, while the deer did their random thing where the other side of the road seems to be better right that very second.
I wonder if those who feel one should always be able to miss a deer live in an area where the deer are like the deer in this one very residential area I drive through. Do not know if it is genetics or learned behavior, but the deer in this one area do not even twitch an ear as a car goes by and they are on the road edge eating something a homeowner was silly enough to plant at the base of their mailbox.
Where I live it is the pet ownerâs fault if their pet causes damage to a car when the car hits it in the road. There is no expectation that a large dog will randomly appear in the road.
Not sure what the unusual circumstances were but this is very sad.
As for the deer, I live on a slight curve and deer cross a lot from the front field to the woods across the road. There have been many a deer running out in front of cars and bouncing off or getting hit square. Thankfully the police will euthanize if the deer did not die. So far no people have been injured.
That headline does not match the article at all. What details did they share? It is like the worldâs shortest article.
I hit a deer for the first time, in over 41 years of driving, last year on my way to the Quarter Horse Congress. I have always lived in areas with high numbers of deer.
Hell, the neighbors here joke they think we are farming deer instead of cattle when there are double digits of deer standing in our pasture closest to the road.
Early afternoon on a sunny Saturday, while going below the speed limit through a state park in Ohio. Traffic was such that I know I was below the speed limit.
BFF, riding shotgun in the front passenger seat, screams âDEER ON THE LEFTâ at the top of her lungs as we made impact. I stopped so hard I was nearly rear ended by the vehicle behind me. BFF caught her out of the corner of her eye as she started down an embankment. I did not see her as I was concentrating on the traffic in front of me, which was stop and go.
The doe came down the embankment from the woods, across the opposite lane from me and right into my lane, impacting the truck on its left front corner.
She then went cartwheeling across the entire front of the truck, just above bumper level, landing in tall grass at the side of the road dead.
@Annie10, your theory that all accidents involving loose animals is incorrect at best, as is that on speed limits.
Posted speed limits take road topography and conditions into consideration when deciding on what those limits will be.
Accidents are just that- accidents! They can happen at any time to anyone.
Even to those falling off their high horses!
I once left the barn late at night. A doe jumped out right in front of me and her baby jumped out behind her. The baby and the mom stopped in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD to nurse in the light of my headlights. Iâve never been more confused.
Former friend lived on a small farmette (5ac) on a cul de sac, across from Forest Preserve.
Deer routinely camped on her driveway - not 2 or 3, more like a dozen, some lying down, others chowing on her lawn.
You had to honk & drive very slowly towards them to get them to allow you up the drive. 
@Bogey2 Driver may have had what they refer to as a âmedical incidentâ I e. heart attack/seizure.
Still sad, but unavoidable.
We have this situation with turkeys, especially this time of year there will be 2-3 huge toms and a flock of hens right in the driveway, or worse, the middle of the road. And they donât really care that cars are coming and interrupting their flirting. People from here know where they are likely to be and do slow way down, particularly on one specific blind curve that is a favorite hang-out spot for this flock. But if youâre not from here, and you were just driving along on a pretty country road, why would you ever expect to come around a curve and see 20 turkeys in your way!
Here in the west there are so many places that are âfree rangeâ. Woe to you if you hit a cow in the middle of nowhere. Not only is your vehicle most likely totaled and you injured, but youâll be paying for that cow.
Had a near deer incident last evening coming home from the barn. Weâve had dense low-lying fog off-and-on for the past several days, and the farm is within a half-mile from the lake, so we sometimes get fog when no one else does. Crept out of the driveway in said fog and within a short stretch came a deer, just strolling out of the small wet-ish wooded area about 15 yards ahead and on my passenger side. Fortunately, I saw it, and it saw me; I slowed, and it trotted an arc and went back into the wooded area. Also fortunately, it was out solo. While our local deer population is fairly traffic-savvy (I swear they have learned to look both ways before trying to cross the road), the fog couldâve created a mess for both of us.
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