Last night, I was driving back on the highway from dropping off a friend of mine. All of a sudden, a high point buck and doe (and probably more) decided to run across 4 lanes of traffic. They somehow make it across the first 2 lanes of oncoming, then jump into my lane. With a car immediately to my left and behind me, the only course of action was to jink slight right to minimize the impact. These things were literally running full speed. The car to my left was just slightly ahead of me, blocking my view. I only saw the damn thing when he slammed on the breaks, about a millisecond before its head came into view. I knew this was going to be good.

Anyway, no injuries at all. Well, except the deer. As I jinked right (to the shoulder, nothing was there), it was too close and I saw its head and nice rack of antlers right before it collided with my left light and brush bars. I felt a soft thud. Not a hard clunk, but it gave me the same sensation as a paintball. You know how when a paintball hits you, it hurts less when it breaks? Well, that deer's head was the paintball. I must have hit it doing around 65 (highway, speed limit 65) when I hit it, and as I glanced back in the rearview, I saw, illuminated by the car's headlights behind me, a glorious explosion of my turn signal glass, antler, saliva and/or blood and small things the size of teeth.

When I got to a convience store parking lot I checked out the damage and cleaned off the blood and saliva. Not too bad, all in all, considering that if this deer had a serious rack, it was probably a couple hundred pounds. Could have been worse. The insurance company said that because it was an animal, the deductable is only half of what it normally is, and my rate won't increase at all. So I'm out 250 bucks (251 I suppose), but it was certainly worth it.

This morning I took pics to share with the Hivemind.






If only those brush bars had the little steel bars covering the headlights, the damage would have been even less. To the truck.

I've got a Ranch Hand grill guard on my 3/4 ton.  I've found that if I can't avoid them altogether it is best to center up on them and run them the fuck over.

251$ to replace a headlight? Or is there more damage that I didnt see? Good to hear you made it out alright. Last year I hit a deer in an F150 on the night I bought the truck. Thankfully the deer was about the size of a large house cat.

Brush guards are great for deer hits, just unbolt, toss on the scrap heap and buy a new one vs major body shop time for a truck without.

Kharn

that's it????? you got off lucky.

Thanks man.

Probably more. There's a massive dent in the panel on the quarter panel from the thing's head, and some paint chipped off. A point where the housing bolts into the body is bent, and there's some other little things going on.

If I wanted to do it on the cheap, I could probably get out at around 250, but you have insurance for a reason. If you want it fixed right, then it's well worth it. That'd require fixing the dings, paint, and replacing the light.

I wish I could say that I was eating the bastard right now but I didn't really feel like stopping and dodging traffic just to grab him.

Yup!

My 4Runner came with an ARB up front.
Thing will probably also kill the deer next to the one that gets hit.

Aware.

I'm glad your OK......It could have been alot worse. Somebody up there must like you





One Day my poor Wife was taking an evening walk and this crazy driver swerved to the side of the road and took her legs out. All she remembers is waking up bungy corded to the vehicles roof. Here is a pic just before the rescue mission..........

It looks like Pathfinder-1, Deer-0