With my trusty 150.
F150.
Out near Jarbalo, while towing a trailer with a cannon on it down to Texas.
Which will now have to wait.
Sigh. Bound to happen out here eventually. Better the F150 than the Aztek. The 150 will need a new bumper and some fascia, and a fog light.
The Aztek would be headed for the junkyard. Which would be sad, because it's paid for and we expect to get another 5 years out of it, and we really don't need a new vehicle.
F150.
Out near Jarbalo, while towing a trailer with a cannon on it down to Texas.
Which will now have to wait.
Sigh. Bound to happen out here eventually. Better the F150 than the Aztek. The 150 will need a new bumper and some fascia, and a fog light.
The Aztek would be headed for the junkyard. Which would be sad, because it's paid for and we expect to get another 5 years out of it, and we really don't need a new vehicle.
You hit Bambi??? Rudolph?? At least the F150 had a fighting chance.
I didn't hit the deer...the deer hit me. I had all my head lights and grill, but my quarter panel and right side door took a $2,400 shot from a deer being spooked by a local dog. Almost 50 years driving in the country with all kinds of deer and bears and in CT...Moose and I managed never to hit one. But they couldn't just leave me alone.
The Moose hit on the Meritt Parkway was 900 pounds. That had to be some ding. The F150 would have been toast. The bear hit on Interstate 287 here in NJ was medivaced with a helicopter. That, I think, was a bit much. We have plenty of bear...a Statey should have been able to save the tax payers a lot of money.
At the risk of seeming craven, I think it better to hit a deer than swerve and hit something immovable.
It ain't your roadway, Bambi; stay the hell away.
Not.
The image of Bambi spinning away will stay with me for a while, I admit.
That and the damned burned rubber from the tire (the mashed-in bumper was rubbing it) as I had to use the trailer ramps to get the leverage to clear the wheel.
Feh.
That and I still don't have the mortars I was on my way there to pick up, which annoys the guy holding 'em, since he'd staged 'em and he's not going to move them back - which means they spend the rest of this week in the weather.
Fooey.
In most situations where you might need a new bumper, those bars ensure you also need new lights, signals, grill, fender etc...
Around here deer are a big problem, even in the middle of the city (OK, Nevada's small but still.) Not even all the dogs running loose seem to deter them.
I've never hit a deer, but I've had a deer hit me. I had stopped at an intersection because I wasn't sure if I had gone far enough to be at the right road (We now have road signs out in the county - finally) and I was just starting to accelerate when a deer jumped out of some bushes and hit the side of my car right behind me. He turned around and jumped right back where he came from, leaving me with a big dent in the side of my car. I think of that deer every time I eat venison, I consider it payback.
We've rescheduled for next weekend, and I'm hoping Dave finds a tarp to cover the mortars.
The cops didn't believe we weren't racing; even after they found no points on my NJ license and no real skid marks on the road from my car. Good thing they didn't check PA, NY, CT and DE. I am always careful on the roads west of Morristown. The place is covered in deer. The Vette had a couple of feet of skid.
The guy ended up with just the bloody nose and some whiplash. I think his nose hit the steering wheel when he impacted the deer. The Vette was a mess.
(WTF bambi is doing in a Union Co, NJ subdivision at 1930 hrs on a weekday is a quetion you get to take up with animal control).
What about all those people beating drums and blowing bugles on Sate Park land so hunters can't hunt. They stopped the bear hunt in Sussex Co two years ago and Sussex is lousy with bears. When they started to come into peoples kitchens, the hunt was on.
You can't shoot a shotgun or black powder within 450 of a dwelling or road. No rifles are permitted. The deer know this and congregate in my back yard. I can hit them in the ass with a banjo; which is a lot more fun then hitting them with my Buick.
Doing all *that* spooks the deer and makes them more prone to dashing in front of your car. So far, I've only nailed two of 'em, both with the Jeep.
The herd of about fifty or so that haunts my neighborhood back home has learned through experience to wait until the cars pass before they thunder across the road...
They stopped the bear hunt in Sussex Co two years ago and Sussex is lousy with bears.
Back in 2006, the NJDEP relocated a black bear from Sussex to what they termed a "wilderness" area, and expounded on the local TeeVee station with much head-tilted sincerity that the bruin would now be able to roam *free* as Mama Gaia had intended.
The "wilderness" area was a five-acre marsh just outside the Trenton City Limits bordered by a strip mall, two housing developments, and the crossroads of two major highways. Six hours later, the bear was flattened by a semi.
NJDEP is full of environmentalists who grew up watching the Disney Channel. There ain't a genuine *biologist* in the entire Department...
I believe it's bow and shotgun, but I was getting the info from one of the Gannett "local" papers; so for all I know there could be a GAU season and/or a chainsaw season as well.
About three years ago, back when I was still living in the wilds of Pennsylvania, this beautiful six-pointer comes bounding out of the woods and into a just harvested cornfield. As he galloped paralell to the country road and in the same sense of direction that I was driving a little voice spoke to me:
"That Crazy Overgrown Wood Rat is gonna leap out of that field and accross the road just around the bend that's comming".
I let off the gas in my Dodge Neon, and let it coast. Sure enough, right before the bend, that Müdder Fokker makes a cut to his left, leaps accross the culvert, and bounds right in front of my car. I miss him by a nary three feet. Last I saw of him was his white upright tail as he darted into the woods on the other side of the road.
Don't get me wrong. I love venison. But sharing the front seat of my puny Neon with 150 pounds of venison would have soiled its upholstery.
It's Bemer and Mercedes season in Jul. Pickup truck season in Sep and Semi season year round.
And no...you're not allowed to harvest the deer you hit. A game control person comes around and picks up the carcass.
The most fun is nailing a skunk on the road. You have to park your car in someone else's neighborhood and walk home.
I hope game control at least donates the venison. Probably not though if they aren't harvesting immediately.
Summit and Wachung? We totally fenced in the highway and the critters have 2 bridges to cross over the highway.
Japanese and Korean cars don't stand a chance. Most European cars don't stand a chance. An old Mercedes buit out of steele is good and a Lanrover will work. Most pickups and SUV's are high and big enough to guard the passengers but damage is great. A mini van is very bad.
And forget the deer whistles...they fall off in the car wash...and most of us think the deer like the music.
Being the Padawan Driver that he is, he asked of me: "Why must I hit them?" I told him basically the same thing: Swerve and your risk of having bigger problems just multiplied. Actuaries lie awake at night thinking of the calculations to prove their point, so until we live in an Algore World, hit the )@#($&(^&( squirrel/deer, etc. Of course, it got into a whole thread about speed and observation but you get the idea. I have hit a deer in the Precious and it is not an experience I would ever go through again, and the CLUs were with me at the time.
Me, I drive insanely carefully along the known deer roads here in Georgia. I figure I'll tag one in the middle of town where I'm not expecting it before I'll hit one in the dark.
Just saying.
(glad you're ok. There was an Illinois college football coach killed this weekend when he crashed, swerving to hit a deer.)
Given the choice between deer rutting season and sonw, I'll take the snow, thanks.