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I hate mother#%&@ing nature!!! 56k beware

IRingTwyce

I ROCK at bumper cars!
Joined
Jul 1, 2003
Messages
5,221
Location
Graham, TX: a place so nice, they rob your house t
So last night I had a blind date 40 miles away in the next town. Everything went well until the drive home. At 2:30 a.m. and about 6 miles outside of my town, I was messing with my stereo, probably flipping tracks. I look up to (belatedly) see a deer in the oncoming lane. Simultaneously I lean on the horn, slam on the brakes, and swerve to the right onto the shoulder. About half way over the white line and on the shoulder, I see the deer coming directly at me. Not at the front of the car, but at ME. *** BAM *** and it hits the car right at the A-pillar. It forces me off the highway at about 60 mph (down from the 75 I was going), and I correct hard back to the left, starting to slide a bit until I hit pavement and get to enjoy the neck-snapping feel of my rubber hooking back up to said pavement. I get back on the shoulder and slide to a stop.

So now I'm pissed. Mostly because I only have liability, but also because in 7 years I have NEVER seen a deer along this stretch of road. I get out to assess the damage. The first thing is easy to spot. I have no mirror on my door anymore. Well, not all of it anyway. It's dark and the middle of nowhere, so I have no light to really see how bad the damage is.

I get back in the car, flip a U'ie, and ease back down the road to see the deer. In my mind I'm thinking to myself, "That damn deer better damn well be dead after what it did to my car. If it got up and ran off, I'm gonna hunt it down and run it over again!" Now, anyone who knows me knows I have a pretty soft heart when it comes to animals. I rarely wish harm to one, unless it means I get to eat it. But I have to say, I felt a large measure of satisfaction to see that damn doe laying in the road, twisted around rather unnaturally, and periodically thrashing as if having an epileptic seizure! I eased passed it, flipped another U'ie, and stopped across the highway from it, now facing towards home again. I got out and began picking up a few of the larger pieces of my mirror that were strewn along the road. Interestingly enough, even though the glass had been knocked out, hit glass side down, and slid on the asphalt, it didn't break! Scratched the hell out of it though. As I'm picking up the pieces, the doe finally quits thrashing around. If I had been 100% sure it was dead, I'd have gone over and kicked it hard for good measure. But with my luck last night, it would have still been alive and wound up kicking me.

I got back in my car and headed on home, stopping at WalMart as I came into town so I could better assess the damage in their well-lit parking lot. Looking at it today in the daylight, there's more damage than I first thought, but for a deer hit, I got off REALLY REALLY REALLY light! The mirror is toast, there is a 18" long raised crease on the driver's door just above where the rub strip would be, as well as a 6" vertical crease on the trailing edge of the same door. It's not visible in the pics I took, so I'm not posting that door. The back door has a nerf football-sized dent just in front of the back wheel, and the wheel arch is damaged as well. **sigh** Just what I needed now. I have no idea what it will cost to fix. I do have a replacement mirror, but it was a set of heateds that I had just found a buyer for. :mad: Damn deer!!! The b!tch of it is, if I had swerved into the oncoming lane I probably would have missed it.

What's left of the mirror: (if you look closely you can see deer hair on it!)



Back door:

 
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Paintless dent removal on that back door and the wheel arch area. Can't tell if it's into the paint or not by that creased area, but PDR is generally pretty cheap, and you'll never know there was ever a dent.

Sorry to hear about the accident though.

Mark
 
Deers are deers. What can you say?

Remember Fastcougar's incident two months ago? Glad you are okay and the Contour is not totalled.
 
I'm glad you are OK!
Sorry to hear about the car. :(
 
I'm sorry about your car, and even MORE sorry that you swerved! You could have SERIOUSLY been hurt.

DEER don't hit back near as hard as a concrete pillar, or tree. Avoid the subconscious urge to swerve!

I'm REALLY glad that you are okay, man!
 
Similar thing happened to me a long time ago in my old 96GL.

Saw this HUGE white (or really, really light colored) deer trying to run in front of me on a 2 lane back road.

Yes, I swerved to avoid hitting it (note there was no ditch on my side, just a field), but he tagged my driver's rear quarter panel, putting me in a severe tail out situation at 60-70MPH.

Cheap tires allowed me to slide at least 50ft sideways before getting grip and, since I was sideways, straight into the oncoming lane's really deep ditch. Car jumped the ditch and bumper planted itself on the other side (which was a fairly steep slope into some woods), leaving the front tires off the ground.

Since there were 3 dudes (including me) in the car, we lifted the rear of the Contour and slid it sideways (I'm sure the snow helped here), which caused the front end to slide down the slope.

Now that I wasn't perpendicular to the ditch, I rocked the car until I got close enough to the road where digging the snow out wouldn't take all night.

Drove away with zero injuries and no car damage (surprising since the bumper cover was blocking the headlights when it was planted on the slope).
 
glad to hear you are ok.

but no one has asked the most important question yet...
did you get any?
 
glad to hear you are ok.

but no one has asked the most important question yet...
did you get any?

yeah dude I'm hungry.
Did you at least make a call to report the deer in the road?

I'm really surprised by the small amount of damage.
 
Thanks for all the concern!

Wow from going by what you wrote i was expecting alot more damage!

Atleast your ok and the cars not irrepairable.
There could have been MUCH more damage, and honestly, as hard as it hit me (it knocked the deer back across the road, effectively across two lanes) I was expecting both doors to be caved in.

Please tell me the side markers are ok!?!? :shocked:
Not a scratch (or a deer hair) on them! It hit me right on the a-pillar. Last thing I saw before I was off the road was its beady black eyes, then.... **THUD!!**

glad to hear you are ok.

but no one has asked the most important question yet...
did you get any?
:D Not yet. I'm confident I will though. It went well enough for there to be more dates.
 
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