Quote:
Originally Posted by silver_snipe
The only thing everyone is leaving out in not swerving is consider the height of the vehicle you are in. Low car big deer maybe better to swerve. The reason being that a tall deer hit by a low car can go through the windshield. A co-worker of mine was killed a few years when she & her husband hit a deer. The deer's legs went through the windshield and she was killed next to her husband. Truck or SUV definitely hit the deer.
Even if you take the swerve route you still need your seatbelt. It's really hard to steer if you can't stay behind the wheel.
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I disagree. Only 1 in 1000 car deer collisions is fatal for a person in the car. Of these infrequent fatalities, the vast majority occur when the vehicle flips or the car leaves the roadway and collides with something like a tree or utility pole. Keeping the car in the roadway and avoiding flipping gives the best chance of survival even in smaller cars.
But reducing velocity is also important. A 35 mph impact with a deer has much less chance of great bodily harm than a 55 mph impact. I practice constant scanning of the roadside ahead and begin moderately braking as soon as deer are spotted on the side of the road. Waiting until deer are in the road to brake is waaaaay too late. During times of peak deer activity I also frequently ask passengers in my car to help me scan the roadside for deer, and I'll drive slightly below the speed limit in conditions of limited visibility when deer are likely to be moving.
I bet I anger more than a few impatient drivers on foggy mornings. I drove 35 mph all the way from Hackberry to the Cameron boat launch the morning last December when someone put the mobile home in the ditch along Hwy 27.