Deer strike.

[MM300_imp]

Anyone have any strategies for minimizing risk?

Those "deer whistles" have pretty much been discredited. Now, when I'm on the job, running a locomotive...and we have deer in the track (I don't like to hit them for several reasons) there are things I've found I can do. The air horn...is just music to their ears. It seems to soothe them...really. But putting on the BELL...that BANG! BANG! BANG! of the clapper whacking the bell...that raises alarm to them.

The headlight, just freezes them. Just like jacking deer with a spotlight. So...put the bell ON, and turn the lights OFF...and they scurry away.

Now, there's no headlight switch on a motorcycle...and anyway, you don't have that kind of advance time, to turn it off. When deer are busiest, you need a light even in a car. But...one thing I've done when I HAD to run, in dawn or dusk, through high-risk areas, when there are no homes or police about...is continuously toot the horn.

Does it help? Do rain dances end droughts? Who knows?

I vaguely remember reading of someone who claimed to have put an MP3 look of a dog barking, and playing it on a speaker on the roof of his truck when going through deer country. Claimed it had them running. I'm dubious...but I'll consider anything.

Check your speed and keep your eyes wide open in known deer areas. Scan everything. Here in PA we are overloaded with them. On my morning commute, especially in late summer early fall, I usually have several trotting across the road in front of me every day. If they're not on the road they are spectating from the sidelines.

One time I had one land on the road about 10 feet in front of me. I was doing 45 mph and to the deers credit, in that split second, he realized I was about to run into him. Every one of his muscles operated in unison as he sprang in one leap across the rest of the road. It was amazing to see and quite a heart pounder. If I was going any faster I would have broadsided him. You just can't be complacent on these rural woodsy roads.

[JustPassinThru_imp]

Those deer whistles are conpletely worthless. I pretty much blast my horn repeatedly and if you have a loud pipe rev up the motor, basically making as much noise as possible. (The CB horn is nice and loud & piercing.) My experience has been they seem to run away from that, but that only works if you have adequate warning by seeing them. If they do their leaping trick, prayer instinct & experience are all you've got.
Also, SLOW DOWN AS FAST AS SAFELY POSSIBLE as soon as you see one, not to mention proceed very cautiosly when driving through wooded areas.

I suspect it's the raspiness of the horn that gets their attention. "Smooth" sounds, like a train air horn or some cars' horns...don't faze them a bit.

Ope pipes, as I said...I kinda wish I had some noise like that the other day; but then...think of how someone with a loud bike comes up on you when you're standing near the road. You hear that noise, maybe two seconds if he's traveling 60. That's really not much reaction time, even to wildlife.

Wonder if I could find an electronic relay, like a car alarm, to cycle the horn...quick blast every five seconds or so. Of course, if John Law finds me using it, I'll get a ticket...but a ticket is cheaper, wallet and body both, than a deer hit.

[furious_blue_imp]

If I'm in an area where I suspect that there are deer around, I slow down until a car catches up to me. I move over and wave the car past. I then follow the car at a safe (normal) distance and let them deal with any deer up ahead.

One of the more chilling deer scenes that I ever saw was on a rural highway in eastern Oregon. I was nearing the crest of a hill when I saw a whole pack of deer (what's the correct word for a group of deer, BTW ?). There were probably 6 to 8 of them and they were spread all across the road covering both lanes. I thought: 'if anybody is cresting that hill from the other side and is going at a reasonable clip, they are doomed, there will be deer on both sides of the road, no way to avoid a hit !' Luckily, no one was coming the other way..

[JustPassinThru_imp]

If I'm in an area where I suspect that there are deer around, I slow down until a car catches up to me. I move over and wave the car past. I then follow the car at a safe (normal) distance and let them deal with any deer up ahead.

One of the more chilling deer scenes that I ever saw was on a rural highway in eastern Oregon. I was nearing the crest of a hill when I saw a whole pack of deer (what's the correct word for a group of deer, BTW ?). There were probably 6 to 8 of them and they were spread all across the road covering both lanes. I thought: 'if anybody is cresting that hill from the other side and is going at a reasonable clip, they are doomed, there will be deer on both sides of the road, no way to avoid a hit !' Luckily, no one was coming the other way..

That reminds me...of a fated trip I took from Montana to Wisconsin, part of my move out here. Now...I hate the slabs. Cage or cycle, I hate the slabs. I hate the trucks; I hate the passive-aggressive dominance of so many cretinous drivers; I hate the texting idiots.

So I took a state route that roughly parallels I-90.

First indication I had that things were not all well...was a traffic backup, 11:30 at night, in the middle of nowhere. When I got to it, seems that a car pulling a camper trailer, had lost it on a bridge over a dry creek and was laying in the ravine. There were plenty of passers-by aiding assistance, but oddly, no uniformed, strobe-lighted emergency personnel. But...no point in my stopping.

Twenty minutes later, coming from the east, comes an ambulance. That's not good. When seconds count, the EMTs are hours away.

Hoo-kaaay...now, about thirty miles east, I find out what might have been the trouble. Keep in mind...that traffic backup notwithstanding, this road was not heavily traveled that night. Nor was there ANY light ANYWHERE...it was my two yellowed headlights in my old Toyota truck that gave all the relief I was gonna get in this black-hole of a night.

And what appears, just like that, to my eyes? Why...a veritable FOREST of antlers! Hooo-lee. I dynamited the brakes; saw them come closer...closer...a herd, stampeding across the road. This was gonna be bad.

I closed my eyes. Didn't want glass in them when the windshield shattered.

That white-noise >THUNK!< and a mild sensation...and it was all over. Windshield was still there. Hood wasn't rippled...look to the mirror, outside...IT AIN'T THERE. Ripped clean off. MAN, that was close.

At the next town I stop to check everything...and get a surprise. Just behind the cab, the bed-box is stove in, before and after the rear wheel. Apparently a big fellow got hit on the head and his carcass kept on moving in a 90-degree collision...two hundred pounds of buck, up against the light sheet metal of a Tacoma pickup box.

Dodging the bullet. I thought of those poor saps in that car-and-trailer...there, but for the gods, lay I.

[metallyguitarded_imp]

I enjoyed surviving that encounter with you! Geeze Louise!

[Cormanus]

Me too.

[furious_blue_imp]

ohhhh.. glad you're around to tell the tale.

[flynrider]

Anyone have any strategies for minimizing risk?

Those "deer whistles" have pretty much been discredited. Now, when I'm on the job, running a locomotive...and we have deer in the track (I don't like to hit them for several reasons) there are things I've found I can do. The air horn...is just music to their ears. It seems to soothe them...really. But putting on the BELL...that BANG! BANG! BANG! of the clapper whacking the bell...that raises alarm to them.

The headlight, just freezes them. Just like jacking deer with a spotlight. So...put the bell ON, and turn the lights OFF...and they scurry away.

Now, there's no headlight switch on a motorcycle...and anyway, you don't have that kind of advance time, to turn it off. When deer are busiest, you need a light even in a car. But...one thing I've done when I HAD to run, in dawn or dusk, through high-risk areas, when there are no homes or police about...is continuously toot the horn.

Does it help? Do rain dances end droughts? Who knows?

I vaguely remember reading of someone who claimed to have put an MP3 look of a dog barking, and playing it on a speaker on the roof of his truck when going through deer country. Claimed it had them running. I'm dubious...but I'll consider anything.

I think one of the reasons I encountered Bambi on that road at 10 AM (usually later than deer hang out in the open) was that there was virtually no traffic on the road. That, coupled with my extremely quiet approach around a hard curve with a stock exhaust seems to have set me up.

My strategy for the rest of the trip (particularly on low traffic roads) was to keep a vehicle or two in front of me in places where leaping deer would be most likely.

[the Ferret]

I see a lot of deer out around noon actually, not just early and late. Deer actually have 5 feeding times per day.

I think like most accidents it is just fate that the two of you end up in the same place. Try all you like you can't avoid fate.

[kennyw]

Last time I hit a deer it was on a busy 2 lane during the morning rush hour traffic. OK, I was a passenger in a car pool and the driver hit the deer. But the location was one where the road was elevated 10-15 feet above the wetlands with a steep embankment on both sides. No way to see the deer coming until it jumped over the guard rail. Then it was too late for evasive maneuvers. I'm glad I wasn't riding that day because a 55-60 mph hit would not have ended well for either the deer or myself.