Lots and lots of dead deer on the side of the highway in central New Jersey.

Not too long ago a State Trooper, the son of a neighbor died in the line of duty when he lost control after hitting a deer on the Garden State Parkway, but he was probably going over 65.

What is the usual result to a car when it hits a deer at 55-65?

Are the cars that hit deer usually going slower than that at impact?

What happens at 30-40 MPH.

Thanks in advance.

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Buy American
Vote Responsibly

We had a '97 Dodge Neon that had 6 or 7 hits.
Usually, we'd get it stopped in time, the deer'd wander off to the side of the road, we'd start going and the stupid thing'd come running out in the road again.
There goes another headlight.
Had 'em run into the side of the car.
I always seem to manage to slow down enough that we didn't hit 'em all that hard.
Smashed grill, dented hood, two or three headlights.
That was a tough little car.

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Keep on Chooglin'

I have hit 9 in the last 10 years. Speeds from over 75 to around 35. Anything from a new grill, broken fog light housing (55 mph), fenders to full body rebuild. (Subaru outback) I have never lost control and cannot imagine doing so. My guess is he was trying to evade it. Hit it if you must but to stay safe you need to stay on the road.

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Front sight and squeeze

What usually happens is an insurance claim and a cookout. BTW my sister totaled her MG on a hog.

Each deer hit is unique to that time and place.
We had a lady hit a deer, it flew up in the air and went through the on coming cars wind shield.

I have seen cars that hit a deer, and most of the damage is done by trying to avoid the animal, rolling the car over, hitting a tree or trees, etc.

As far as totaling a vehicle, the best thing to do is stay on the road, which is very possible. Most people over react to the deer, and end up killing someone else or themselves.

Have hit two. First came out of a creek bed and onto the road, right before a bridge. Two leaps, and I plowed her at 75 mph in a Honda Accord. KO'd the front end, total loss. the car absorbed most of the impact, so she ended up laying across the hood against the windshield. Thankfully, didn't come through, but it was no fun trying to get stopped while not being able to see. On a bridge. At night. With no headlights....

Second time was much slower, about 45 mph, in my next Accord. The deer stuck her head right into the road where my passenger headlight was pointed. i never saw her since oncoming traffic had their high beams on. Struck her in the head, spun her around and into my passenger door. Needed a new hood, bumper, headlight, fender and door.

As mentioned, just about the worst thing people do is swerve hard to avoid the deer and lose it, end up rolling or crashing into oncoming traffic. It's a lose lose situation. On one hand, you hit 200 lbs of muscle and bone, totaling your car, or try to avoid and risk having an accident. Which you chose depends largely upon the situation.

Hitting a deer at 30 is still going to cause a lot of damage. Throw a 100 pound punching bag in the road and your car will not like the result. It's imperative that you keep the car under control, on the road, and in your lane, especially at higher speeds. Most of the fatalities and injuries don't come from the deer coming through the windshield, but the driver having a crash trying to avoid the deer. Swerving upsets stability, striking the deer upsets it even more. As a general rule if a collision is clearly going to happen, hold on tight, steer straight, and stand on the brakes.

The worst are the airborne deer hitting other cars. A coworker's wife was behind a car that hit a deer, it went airborne. The deer's neck hit the roof where it meets the windshield. This decapitated the deer, and the severed deer head busted through the windsheild and landed in the front passenger seat. She drove off the road and came to a stop in a corn field, jumped out and ran screaming into the woods. They had to go looking for her. The car was totaled, mostly due to the blood in the interior.

Some days Murphy is a seriously sick puppy.

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Release the Kraken

Deer strikes are very common here in the Ozarks, I've worked dozens of accidents involving them. I've actually hit three myself in the past 10 years. The most recent one was more of the deer hitting me than me hitting it, I was doing about 30 mph and it came running out on the left side and hit me square in the drivers side door. I never saw it coming and it scared the **** out of me when it hit, then when it flew up and over on the windshield my initial thought was that I'd hit a pedestrian.

I've worked several fatality accidents due to deer strikes in which the driver looses control afterwards. Deer strikes on motorcycles are the worst, they almost never turn out well.

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- Change it back -

where I live the deer are a way of life. Over the last 20 years I have hit 10 or more deer. One time a deer hit me at an angle and I lost control and did a 180 and ended up in a field. the right side front corner was pushed back on the tire the fender pushed on the door. The biggest deer hit was a nice 10 point buck ,came out of a ditch, just after dark, Hit it broadside I was going about 70 mph. the entire front end was crushed, radiator, water pump, the deer exploded, blood and guts covered the truck ,a 1994 Ford Ranger. Do not swerve to miss a deer, it's just a car/truck.

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Carpriver.

I hit one in Nebraska on the 4th of July weekend
coming back home from a Prairie Dog shooting trip.
I was doing all of 65 mph plus some.
The Deer came out of a side ditch that was over grown
and i didn't see her until it was smack dab in front of
me. She was moving..... I'll always remember the image
of that Deer. Think of a Horse at full gallop.
I was driving my Ford F150 and never had a chance to
hardly get my foot to the brake pedal. I am sure i hadn't
put pressure on it when the collision happened.
It slowed the truck down a little and as i looked in my
sideview mirror i saw it sliding on it's side into the
ditch opposite side of the road from which it came.
I centered the Deer right in the middle of the bumper.
I was traveling with a buddy and called him on the walkie
talkie as he was up ahead of me. I had his 12 year old son
in the front seat riding with me at the time and as others
have said, i never even thought of swerving or going to
the ditch at that speed. My buddy came back as i was
parked and afraid to even get out of the truck to survey
the damage. (Again this was 4th of July weekend and i am
800 miles from home).
Then my buddy looked the truck over after checking on us
he motioned to me it was OK to let go of the steering
wheel and come around front.Only damage was the bumper
on drivers side was curled around back towards the tire.
He had me get in the truck and turn the wheel as far as it
would go towards the bent in bumper and i had a good 3-4
inches of clearance.
I couldn't believe it but i was good to go.
And because the Deer was at full stride when i hit it
she never got into the grill or the airbag sensors.
I was a lucky man that day.
Turned out to be 750 dollars worth of damage on a Deer
i hit doing 65 mph plus head on.


Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

I hit one back in 2003 with my '97 Dodge Dakota at 70 mph. I saw her jump the guard rail and cross the highway and I had time to start to hit the brakes but I hit her broadside and she got most of the left side of the front of the truck. She rolled down the driver side with her feet and head bouncing off the door which she dented up pretty good. I know when the cop arrived he thought she had been hit by a tractor trailer, she was pretty much useless as any type of meat from that point on. It did about $5000 in damage and the truck never was right after they fixed it.
My guess is the guy swerved trying to avoid the deer. More people are killed that way than anything else. You're better off taking the deer especially if you are driving at a higher speed and in something bigger than a car like a pick up or SUV. I had a deer hit me a couple years ago in my Jeep and other than a marker lens and him cracking the headlight bezel it was no worse for wear. That little buck was good eating!
I remember watching one woman almost lose it and go into a ditch because she didn't want to hit a squirrel, she said she didn't want to kill it. So she could have gotten killed over a tree rat. It's hard to tell yourself to do it but unless its a moose, it's best to take the animal on, where I live moose are rare and bears don't get more than 300-400 pounds on average.

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Vaya con Dios

Not to take away from deer hits, but around here besides the deer, it skunks..I've seen and smelled several of the road kills. This time of the year, it seems like they act about like a snake. They want to come out of the fields and take the easy walking on the roads.

Too, back to deer..There's a lot of cattle trucks, coming and going. Most of those truckers are always going 100 mph in a 50 mph zone, but most everyone of the big cattle trucks has those big guards on the front of their trucks.

All of this brings me to, this time of the year, I really don't like to drive at night or dusk/dawn times because of the deer.

WuzzFuzz

Only deer I ever hit was with my trophy winning 1968 Elcamino SS, right in the middle of the day. It couldn't have been with my beat up Suburban, nooooo, had to be the classic.

My son got his first deer with his Toyota.

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Isaiah 41:10

The do not swerve advice is well taken.

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Buy American
Vote Responsibly

Several years ago I did research on MV/deer collisions and learned that back then the average insurance claim was over $2,500/collision. The total cost nation wide was in the millions.
The wife hit one and the insurance was just short of $2,000 and the deer got up and ran away. Have no clue if it survived or not.
My research was to help prove that we still needed deer hunting in a town considering banning it. The result was that with 2-3 MV/deer collisions per week the deer herd still needed culling and hunting was not banned. The tree huggers are still upset that Bambi can be hunted. IMHO a quick clean hunting kill sure outweighs MV collisions with a lot less risk to the people involved.

My wife hit one doing about 40-45, it totally wiped out my rare factory installed supercharged 97 4Runner that looked like it was brand new, well until she hit the deer. They will ***** you up. Still miss that old girl.

In 2008, a creative thinker in Missouri government decided that the state ought to pony up $250 to "alleviate the financial suffering" of residents that had struck a deer on MO highways.

Missouri has about 9,000 reported deer/vehicle collisions a year so the cost would have been astronomical.

I guess the rest of the legislators sobered up the moron that wrote the bill and it never went anywhere.

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... a little behind in my work

We have a lot of deer in this area and I never hit one, came close a few times but my wife has had three hit her, one ran into the front fender only putting a small dent another one ran into the rear door again only a small dent the third one, my wife was driving down a narrow road that had a high bank on both side's a deer jumped over the bank and landed on her hood, she had kid in the back seat that she used to cart around and the kid was laughing, my wife asked her what was so funny, she said Gina you said the F word.

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Don

Centerpunched a big buck Christmas Eve eve three years ago $4500.00 in damage to my 2011 Range Rover.

Deer had far less...wandered off into the woods...never found.

Was traveling 25 MPH at thh time. They are tough buggers...all muscle and bone.

BTW, heed the advice of others herein: HIT THE DANGED DEER INSTEAD OF A TREE.

Be safe.

Hit a small one with a caravan ran right over it stuck underneath dead able to drive on home. Swear this is true riding Harleys at 65mph one ran across the road landed across the fuel tank between the rider & windshield of a Road King Bob pulls over throws the deer off it runs away he takes off again goes maybe 100ft pulls over again shaking badly, states it wasn't his day to die.

Wife hit one with our Buick Enclave. Deer flew about 30 feet hobbled off. Car fix was $10,000, headlight alone was $1000. and the air bags didn't go off . Wife said the hit didn't feel hard and car stayed steady. I guess heavy cars do give ya an edge it a collision.

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Vietnam 1969-1971

The only time I hit a deer it was already dead in the middle of the highway. Seriously. I have had some close calls, though.

Doing 80 in the dark on a lonely FM in west Texas. Came upon a large dead mule deer in the center of the road. You don't swerve at 80 mph; you slow down as much as you can and run over the sucker. The skid plate saved the underside of the vehicle from any damage, but I was a bit worried for the next few miles. My son (then about 11 years of age) sleeping in the passenger seat never even woke up.

So it just broke a headlight?????J/K

We have about one hit every night in November and December while I am at work. Had a 9 point buck hit by a little car the other night and it broke it's front leg only. Smashed the windshield and hood of the car. I put that one down with my AR15. While working that one, another was hit about 3 miles away.

I've seen more than my share of cars totaled by them. I hit one in 2003 as well. They are everywhere out here and more need to be shot closer to the city to curb their population. It's a real threat this time of year.

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Mike C

I "rear ended" a deer at about 60 in my car, it bounce up and forward so I ended up hitting it twice did over $4500 damage to my front end. Worst part was the way I hit the deer caused the spine and ribs to shatter, sending fragments into the meat hence no chili this time

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Don

I live in W Central IL, in the 2nd to 3rd highest deer population county in the state and just a few miles from the highest population county. I know very few who haven't hit at least one. I've only hit one, some years ago in a 89 Olds Regency, (big heavy car). I saw one and hit the brakes and got down to 30 mph when the 2nd one jumped right out of the brush directly in front of me. Took out the entire front end, grill headlight, etc, but still driveable. I rolled over the top of it. Cost (in early 90's) over $1000. We are well educated about deer around here, and they always run in multiples, if you see one, there will be another close by. State police always say, "don't attempt to avoid it", you will be injured much more attempting to take the ditch rather than hitting the deer.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I've seen those little deer whistles that some put on the front of there cars.

Any one have any experience with those, do they work?

A hog can be a very, very dangerous animal to hit. Concentrated mass with a low center of gravity, and a square hit at highway speed, especially in a light car, can mean the vehicle flipping end over end with ugly results.

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Oh well, what the hell.

When the meat freezer was about empty, an old buddy of mine used to drive his beat-up pickup on the river bottom gravel roads just after dusk. He'd cruise about 30 mph, and usually didn't use up a whole lot of gas before having a carcass in the bed. Of course, he had a nice welded pipe frame around and across the grill.

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de minimus non curat lex

Had a weird one close to my place.
Man pulling a travel trailer when a deer
jumped between the truck and trailer.

Deer went through the fiberglass front of
the trailer and was inside the trailer DOA...

Out in these parts it's more of a problem with Elk rather then deer. An Elk hit head on will total just about anything on the road.
When we lived in Illinois and if we were running low on venison come Late Winter I'd just wait until someone hit one and that solved that problem.
Jim

Donna the deer lady has this all figured out......
https://us.search.yahoo.com/yhs/sear...t+of+the+story

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I am the Majority
How about u

It depends a great deal on the speed of the car at the instant of impact, the size of the deer, the angle of impact, and the structural integrity of the car.

At high speeds hitting a large deer, the worst case is when the deer comes through the windshield and hits the driver or passenger.

Other than that I cannot imagine loosing control of a vehicle from hitting a deer. I saw some teenagers who had just lost control of their mothers car swerving to miss a deer and throwing on brakes at about 100 MPH. There car ended up on its front bumper leaned up against a pine tree. They never hit the deer at all.

Swerving to miss an animal is what typically causes the loss of control, especially when slamming on the brakes at the same time. Also just from the skid of throwing on the brakes a car going fast enough might get out of control it the driver is not very skilled.

However a trained professional like a highway patrolman should never loose control of his car due to some animal in the road. He had to make some kind of driver error to loose it, or he had to be traveling at a very, very high rate of speed, or on a wet road, or at a nasty curve.

The other question is do you have to use one of your tags on such a deer?

Only hit a deer once, and that was a weird one. Back in the early 80s, I was driving an old VW Beetle back from a trailhead along a logging road in Southern Oregon. I was doing only about 30 when the doe came out of the trees to the left and tried to cross. The front bumper knocked out her legs, and she actually rolled up the curved hood and smacked against the flat windshield (it still had the crack in it when I sold the car the following year). By that time I was standing on the brake and due to the deceleration of the car, the deer rolled back down the hood and tumbled some distances into the road, where she lay flailing for a bit. Before I could contemplate digging out my .357 to end her misery, she disentangled her legs, got up and lurched off into the trees.
The only damage to the car: a dent in the bumper and that windshield crack. I suspect the doe was running on adrenaline and may not have survived long.

I had one hit the side of the van I was driving at night. I slowed way down to let it cross the road, then it doubled back and slammed into the sliding door. A suction cup pulled the dent out. Some years back, a lady I knew was killed down in the hill country, it was thought that she swerved to avoid a deer.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

The wife or the car ?

Deer are nothing.

Try hitting an Angus bull at night, in wyoming, in a suburban, in a no moon light, on a curve in the mountains.

I was not driving but man did we stop instantly.

Bull bellowed and walked away. The suburban never ran again. I was sore for a week.

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SWCA 1646

This is basically what they taught us about car-large animal accidents in the class for an Army driver's license:

• Deer - Car is damaged, the driver may be injured. The deer may be injured or killed.
• Elk - Car is severely damaged, the driver likely severely injured or killed. The elk may be injured.
• Moose - Car is DESTROYED, the driver stone DEAD. The moose walks away.

DAMNED if one didn't do EXACTLY the same thing to me back in the '90s.

I was driving from Lakewood to Berea through the Cleveland MetroParks when I suddenly came upon a herd of deer in the middle of the road. I managed to stop just in time. One of them had his entire side of the WORLD toward which to run. Instead he turned and ran right into my driver's side door, from about three feet away. He dented the door.

Deer are almost as dumb as Piers Morgan. At least the deer don't SAY stupid things.

My brother had one of those mini-vans with a huge windshield when he hit a deer going on a firecall, he was a volunteer. The deer knocked the windshield out and went in the van, alive still. I'm glad he kept control with a deer trying to find a way out of the van.
The interior of that van was trashed. Blood and deer fur everywhere, upholstery stuffing too.

My mom hit one pretty hard back in the fifties. Didn't leave a scratch on her '34 Packard.

Car hits deer the freezer gets filled.

My son tee boned a deer on a motorcycle. The herd was blocking the road in a blind turn. He picked one and tee boned it putting it up on the handle bars. He didn't dump the bike. When he stopped the deer fell off and ran away. The front of the bike was totaled. Broken plastic plus the age of the bike.

Now he gets a Suzuki GSXR 750. Comes to meet me fishing and again almost hits another deer.

I told him I want to take him and his bike deer hunting he's a deer magnet.

We put in many many hours of off road dirt bike riding. You learn balance and how to use body English. The experience in the dirt pays off on the street.

How bout Buck deer jumps through front window of an occupied Dental Office occupants bail out uninjured and deer does about 40K damage to the interior of the office finally expires from being shot multiple times by handguns of responding LEO's who expended 30+ rounds as it went through plaster board from room to room......big bloody mess.

As a uniformed Trooper I used to do drivers safety talks to high school kids in the process of getting their license, I covered the possibility of hitting animals on the roadway, I told them to pre-consider what their action might be if an animal ran in front of them on a semi-busy two lane highway and that they should do some controlled braking but lock their wrists and not take any severe lane change evasive action AND not to exit their vehicle and walk out onto the highway IF they did hit an animal - I also told them that I had been to a number of serious & fatal accidents where drivers hit another vehicle head-on trying to avoid cats-dogs,
Deer, etc.

l was working on the road a couple years back when l had a VERY close call with a deer on l-77 south of Charlotte early one morning...Here l am cruising @70mph In the right lane. Left lane is full of big red FreightLiner @70+...2ft from me is this HUGE buck and l have no place to go...2-3 longest seconds of my life in that little red Escort...TWO more close ones in the next 10 days was more than enough DIVINE WARNING for me...l traded it for Something in the 4000 pound range..Lost a little gas mileage but gained a LOT of safety..

Agree with the statement that AVOIDING the deer generally ends with more of a mess than hitting it. I certainly feel sorry for the NJSP Trooper who was killed, but I'd bet had he simply hit the deer things would have worked out a lot better.

Few people can instinctually perform a lane change maneuver, to avoid a deer, without losing control of the car. Most seem to overcorrect, or panic and then you have far worse issues than simply hitting the deer.

Hit one at 70mph. Slightly bent the bumper on the 93 Ranger, broke a tab off the head light and one on the grill. Had to replace the last two but the light still worked. Happened at 3:30 pm on interstate. Had two run in front of me and hit the brakes and they got by then let the breaks go. Third one came front in front of a RV I didn't see, which was a good thing. I had released the breaks and sped back up. Hit the deer and she went under the truck with minimal damage. Instinct is to hit the breaks but that will cause them to come over the hood. Leave the brakes alone and they will usually go under, unless you have a low front end. Saw on strike where the deer came through the windshield and buckle the roof of a small car. Luckily no one was in the passenger seat as it would have killed the passenger.

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Psalm 23:4

The last deer I killed was about 12 or 14 years ago with my old 89 F150. Coming home from a deer hunt (where I never saw a deer.) left headlight, bent bumper, deer flipped around and caved in the driver door. Still driving the truck. Don't think that would be the case with most newer units. As an aside, the salvage on a 125/150lb. deer is fairly low. Most of the meat will be very bloodshot. Might salvage a little on the off side depending on the velocity on impact. Not really worth the effort especially if you state is like Wy. and you have to wait until they contact the Warden and get permission to salvage the critter.

Many years ago, as Deputy in a rural area in NE South Dakota, I was contacted by a local rancher who advised me that a truck (I always assumed it was a truck because it wasn't still there) had hit a small herd of whitetail deer on a County road near my town. I responded to the area and there were ten or so deer laying in a snow covered ditch (on both sides of the road. No road blockage so I went home a returned the next morning. As I was checking things out, the rancher who had called it in drove by and asked what was going to happen to the meat? I said I thought that would be up to the local Warden but I didn't think the meat would be fit for human use. The rancher wanted some of the meat for dog food so I put him in contact with the Warden, who later came up and got a head count and wrote the permits to the rancher. I believe the Warden ended up taking teeth and other samples but I guess the rancher had a winters worth of bloodshot meat for his dogs.

Maybe IF she took the grill off of the truck and beat the mallard with it.
Or the prosecutor REALLY loves ducks.
Y'all sure are tough on *crime* in Ohio

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In dog years I'm dead.

Back in the 70s, when I was in a Junior Rifle Club, word was that one of the fathers that was an OTR trucker was trying to make up lost time in Pennsylvania. He was driving a Kenworth hauling a tanker. Word is that he hit a small herd of deer doing about 70. Tractor and tanker were totalled. Driver was busted up rather badly.

I can't personally attest to the details, but that was the story.

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Judge control not gun control!