Posted by Curtis Knight on September 3, 2006 at 2:18 PM
I've been running around the woods of the PNW all my life and I've never even come close to hitting a deer. Partly because I always want to slow down/stop to look at them, but mostly because if I see them, I know that they are competely unpredictable and if you see 'em, it's unwise to continue at your current speed.
Brian and I spent the day Friday on Old Barlow Road and we were on our way to Trilium to try for some sunset shots. We were on the 43 road, heading for Hwy 26, and I had the cruise control set at 45. Brian was busily changing the batteries in my GPS, and all of a sudden our conversation was interupted by a lound crunch. I looked down and to my right to see a deer head for the length of time it takes to snap your fingers.
She just leapt out of the ditch and wham! From the hoof prints we found, it looked like she just came running out of the trees, straight across the ditch, up onto the road.
I'm glad I was only doing 45. Be carefull out there!
Posted by Geoff Shapiro on September 3, 2006 at 6:52 PM
I'm glad that neither of you were hurt in this unfortunate collision. Did you stop to see if the deer was out of its misery?
Posted by Marc Adamus on September 3, 2006 at 7:33 PM
I hit one at 60mph last year on this exact week. I was about to depart for a month-long trip, so it was particularly bothersome. The trip got cancelled. My new Subaru had $10,000 worth of body work done. I didn't have it for 7 weeks. I recall the event was very similar to what you experienced. When you do hit one, there is NO reaction time. The deer I hit came bounding out of a dense forest that covered all but the road itself in brush. It was in full-sprint when it charged into my vehicle as I was coming around a mild curve. If I see them, I always slow down, but when you hit one, it's the one you can't see or can't avoid. Needless to say, there wasn't much left of the deer at 60. This is the time of year deer are especially mobile so watch out out there!
Posted by Erik Lundh on September 3, 2006 at 11:32 PM
Curtis,
What a bummer. That is one of my worst fears when I'm crusing around in Deer country.
Posted by Philip Kuglin on September 4, 2006 at 2:06 AM
Curtis,
I have a near miss almost on a weekly basis where I live. I see deer almost every day on the road to my house, but almost always in the same spots so I have a chance to slow down and check them out. I have almost hit one twice - well actually the first time I was going about 40 and locked up my brakes and just tapped it. She ran off unhurt. The 2nd time last January I swerved and just missed a 6 point buck in the pouring rain. Only thing was I swerved right into a ditch and nailed a tree instead, but the deer ran away unharmed Compared to Marc I feel lucky as my damage was only $8,000.
I've been there too, a couple times in southeastern Washington. I can relate.
Posted by Curtis Knight on September 4, 2006 at 6:09 PM
Geoff, she was dead when she hit the ground. But I had no way of putting her down if she'd been suffering anyway. Maybe I should start carrying a rifle again.
My sister hit a deer on Lewis River Rd in the 60's with an Impalla. destroyed a muscle car! Carol had several sets of stitches and a feew bruises, but otherwise was uninjured.
The S10 Blazer came out in fair shape considering. I'm surprised. I'd have thought it would crinkle like an acordian. I'm guessing it'll be around 5k or less to fix it. Rt front quarter panel it trashed, bumper, grill, all the front lights ont he right side, rt front door needs a little push/pull repair, or maybe bondo/paint. Hood is undamaged as near as I can tell.
Posted by Rick Lundh on September 4, 2006 at 9:26 PM
Glad to hear you're OK Curtis...
Posted by Gary Minish on September 6, 2006 at 3:41 AM
Guess I'll have to visit this forum more often since Alaska fits here and there seems to be some very interesting conversations. This particular thread really brought back a flood of memories for me.
You see...in Alaska the problem tends to be a little larger and, I suppose safe to say, of significantly greater impact! Much of the two lane highway between Valdez and Anchorage is very narrow with zero shoulders and moose have a way of surprising you just like the deer in the previous examples. The problem with moose (other than many times the weight) is that they stand so tall that if you hit them directly you take the legs out from under them and their body goes through the window and in many cases completely decapitates both car and passengers. Having once come upon one of these type of grisly accidents shortly after it happened, I always keep the thought in the back of my mind that if I get surprised by a moose, whatever I have to do, don't hit it head on.
Well...I was in my wife's Subaru wagon in a particularly narrow curvy section of the highway, following a State Gov't station wagon at approx. 55mph when I saw them swerve suddenly to the left. I couldn't see anything and was trying to figure out what caused them to swerve when a cow moose flashed out of the tall willows on the right at a full tilt run. In the next couple hundreths of a second, I actually remembered my mental drills and initiated a swerve to the right because she was going so fast I knew I could make it behind her without leaving the road. Sometime in the middle of that split second I saw a second moose almost the same size popping out of the brush right on her tail. I quickly reversed the strategy and swerved hard left as fast as I could, knowing that it would probably send me off the road but I wanted to get the bulk of the car in front of her before we collided. I was just entering a broadslide into the left lane when she collided with the passenger side front corner post. The imact was so hard it reversed me to a right hand broadside, facing the right side of the road. The bad news was that the middle of the car was sliding sideways on the edge of the shoulder with the rear wheels in space (it was a drop off of approx. 30 ft.) and the front wheels in the air above the left lane. Obviously, I had no control at that point and I knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the frame would grab a piece of pavement and I was going to go for a roll. I jerked the seat belt harness as tight as I could and grabbed the underside of the steering wheel and held on for dear life. Just as I grabbed the wheel the car launched into the air. All I remember from that point on was a whole lot of noise and G-forces so strong that it felt like two grown men with their feet braced against the steering column were trying to pull my hands off the steering wheel. When it all finally stopped I was upside down in the ditch, 30 ft. below the highway, with my door up against a tree and hanging from the harness. I did a quick assessment and to my disbelief, everything seemed to work and there were no major pains. I turned off the ignition, kicked out what was left of the passenger window and crawled out. Another, more thorough assessment told me I had thousands of little cuts and scratches from flying glass, a few nasty bruises and a shirt that was in strips. No broken bones or internal injuries that I could determine. I then shook the glass off of the carpet runners which were now on the roof, threw them back inside and slid in to remove my luggage, stereo system, tools, etc., etc. I was in the middle of hauling them up to the road when a man came running down the road toward me. He was the passenger of the car in front of me and was coming back to see if there was anything he could possibly do while his partner made a run for the nearest road house (about 7 miles distant). Needless to say, he almost collapsed from relief when he found out that I was OK and was the only one in the car. I tried to get him to help me pack my stuff up to the road but he just set down on the shoulder and looked at me funny. In about 10 minutes an EMT showed up in his pickup, set me on the tailgate, checked my vitals and pronounced me perfectly healthy. About the time he finished I happened to notice that the guy who came back to check on me was ghostly white and just sitting there rocking back and forth. The EMT had to treat him for shock. It all happened too fast for me to be affected but that poor guy had run back down the road a quarter mile with visions of bloody people and body parts running through his head and was in shock before he even saw me. I talked to them later and they said that I rolled at least 7 times and then the car started flipping endwise (even breaking the top off a tree about 30 ft above the road surface before landing 30 ft. below the road surface. You can imagine what they thought they would find. Ironically, the purpose of my trip was to take the car to a body shop in Anchorage to get a bunch of dings and scratches fixed to make it like new. I had a bunch of trim pieces and misc. parts in the back. After catching a ride with the State Trooper who eventually showed up, I had to call my wife and explain to her that we seriously miscalculated and I hadn't bought near enough parts!
Usually I save this story to tell to people who comment that safety belts are just a pain in the rear and really aren't going to help you anyway, but it seemed appropriate in light of the discussion here
Discussion
8 repliesBrian and I spent the day Friday on Old Barlow Road and we were on our way to Trilium to try for some sunset shots. We were on the 43 road, heading for Hwy 26, and I had the cruise control set at 45. Brian was busily changing the batteries in my GPS, and all of a sudden our conversation was interupted by a lound crunch. I looked down and to my right to see a deer head for the length of time it takes to snap your fingers.
She just leapt out of the ditch and wham! From the hoof prints we found, it looked like she just came running out of the trees, straight across the ditch, up onto the road.
I'm glad I was only doing 45. Be carefull out there!
What a bummer. That is one of my worst fears when I'm crusing around in Deer country.
I have a near miss almost on a weekly basis where I live. I see deer almost every day on the road to my house, but almost always in the same spots so I have a chance to slow down and check them out. I have almost hit one twice - well actually the first time I was going about 40 and locked up my brakes and just tapped it. She ran off unhurt. The 2nd time last January I swerved and just missed a 6 point buck in the pouring rain. Only thing was I swerved right into a ditch and nailed a tree instead, but the deer ran away unharmed
My sister hit a deer on Lewis River Rd in the 60's with an Impalla. destroyed a muscle car! Carol had several sets of stitches and a feew bruises, but otherwise was uninjured.
The S10 Blazer came out in fair shape considering. I'm surprised. I'd have thought it would crinkle like an acordian. I'm guessing it'll be around 5k or less to fix it. Rt front quarter panel it trashed, bumper, grill, all the front lights ont he right side, rt front door needs a little push/pull repair, or maybe bondo/paint. Hood is undamaged as near as I can tell.
You see...in Alaska the problem tends to be a little larger and, I suppose safe to say, of significantly greater impact! Much of the two lane highway between Valdez and Anchorage is very narrow with zero shoulders and moose have a way of surprising you just like the deer in the previous examples. The problem with moose (other than many times the weight) is that they stand so tall that if you hit them directly you take the legs out from under them and their body goes through the window and in many cases completely decapitates both car and passengers. Having once come upon one of these type of grisly accidents shortly after it happened, I always keep the thought in the back of my mind that if I get surprised by a moose, whatever I have to do, don't hit it head on.
Well...I was in my wife's Subaru wagon in a particularly narrow curvy section of the highway, following a State Gov't station wagon at approx. 55mph when I saw them swerve suddenly to the left. I couldn't see anything and was trying to figure out what caused them to swerve when a cow moose flashed out of the tall willows on the right at a full tilt run. In the next couple hundreths of a second, I actually remembered my mental drills and initiated a swerve to the right because she was going so fast I knew I could make it behind her without leaving the road. Sometime in the middle of that split second I saw a second moose almost the same size popping out of the brush right on her tail. I quickly reversed the strategy and swerved hard left as fast as I could, knowing that it would probably send me off the road but I wanted to get the bulk of the car in front of her before we collided. I was just entering a broadslide into the left lane when she collided with the passenger side front corner post. The imact was so hard it reversed me to a right hand broadside, facing the right side of the road. The bad news was that the middle of the car was sliding sideways on the edge of the shoulder with the rear wheels in space (it was a drop off of approx. 30 ft.) and the front wheels in the air above the left lane. Obviously, I had no control at that point and I knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the frame would grab a piece of pavement and I was going to go for a roll. I jerked the seat belt harness as tight as I could and grabbed the underside of the steering wheel and held on for dear life. Just as I grabbed the wheel the car launched into the air. All I remember from that point on was a whole lot of noise and G-forces so strong that it felt like two grown men with their feet braced against the steering column were trying to pull my hands off the steering wheel. When it all finally stopped I was upside down in the ditch, 30 ft. below the highway, with my door up against a tree and hanging from the harness. I did a quick assessment and to my disbelief, everything seemed to work and there were no major pains. I turned off the ignition, kicked out what was left of the passenger window and crawled out. Another, more thorough assessment told me I had thousands of little cuts and scratches from flying glass, a few nasty bruises and a shirt that was in strips. No broken bones or internal injuries that I could determine. I then shook the glass off of the carpet runners which were now on the roof, threw them back inside and slid in to remove my luggage, stereo system, tools, etc., etc. I was in the middle of hauling them up to the road when a man came running down the road toward me. He was the passenger of the car in front of me and was coming back to see if there was anything he could possibly do while his partner made a run for the nearest road house (about 7 miles distant). Needless to say, he almost collapsed from relief when he found out that I was OK and was the only one in the car. I tried to get him to help me pack my stuff up to the road but he just set down on the shoulder and looked at me funny. In about 10 minutes an EMT showed up in his pickup, set me on the tailgate, checked my vitals and pronounced me perfectly healthy. About the time he finished I happened to notice that the guy who came back to check on me was ghostly white and just sitting there rocking back and forth. The EMT had to treat him for shock. It all happened too fast for me to be affected but that poor guy had run back down the road a quarter mile with visions of bloody people and body parts running through his head and was in shock before he even saw me. I talked to them later and they said that I rolled at least 7 times and then the car started flipping endwise (even breaking the top off a tree about 30 ft above the road surface before landing 30 ft. below the road surface. You can imagine what they thought they would find. Ironically, the purpose of my trip was to take the car to a body shop in Anchorage to get a bunch of dings and scratches fixed to make it like new. I had a bunch of trim pieces and misc. parts in the back. After catching a ride with the State Trooper who eventually showed up, I had to call my wife and explain to her that we seriously miscalculated and I hadn't bought near enough parts!
Usually I save this story to tell to people who comment that safety belts are just a pain in the rear and really aren't going to help you anyway, but it seemed appropriate in light of the discussion here