Smart vs. Deer

It was a dark and foggy night. I just got in my car to go home from my sister-in-law's house. Two stop signs away, there was an open field where the high powered electrical lines ran through the neighborhood; the fog seemed thicker than pea soup on a frozen lake there. From that second stop sign, it couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 houses to reach the field but I managed to get the car up to a cool 30 mph.

Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of white fur comes dashing out of the field on the right. As it passed in front of me I thought a large long haired labrador retriever was running loose and was racing around the neighborhood unleashed. Before I could get my foot on the brake, the flash of fur was in front of the driver's side of the car. It brought new meaning to the term deer in the headlights. With a solid thud, a temporary loss of light from the left headlamp we screamed, "Oh my God, what was that!?"

I hit the brakes and looked to the left to catch a glimpse of a deer stumbling to the left side of the road and sit down. "We hit a deer," I told Diana. Reversed the Smart about 6 feet and whipped the headlights around to shine on the deer. It was sitting on the grass by the gate that leads into the field of power lines. Slowly and cautiously I got out of the car to check for damage. One last look at the deer and I turned my back on him to look at the car. In the darkness I could see no denting of any kind and no scratches either.

I looked at the deer and he gave me the "What the heck? I've just been hit by a giant tomato." I thought I should go check on the deer but with it being a wild animal and all, I could see this ending like a stupid stunt video on You Tube. I took two slow steps toward the deer and he got up and ran away like a 20 year old from a serious relationship.

I got up the next day to inspect the car, took a photo to document the accident. Looks like the 1800 pound Smart held its own against a 500 pound deer.

Tags: First, accident, animal, deer

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Comment by Tommy Wong on March 8, 2010 at 10:26pm: Thanks, I tried to make it kinda funny and at the same time like a old detective novel.

Comment by Richard D. Shell on March 4, 2010 at 11:08pm: I laughed my butt off reading your description of the moments after the accident. Tragically when I came home tonight someone had hid one fatally and it ended up in my front yard. Glad you weren't hurt.

Comment by Tommy Wong on March 2, 2010 at 3:54pm: Well I hit the deer in the left hind quarter, and if you think about it, he was probably in the air with those hind legs. I think that's the reason we both survived without a scratch, but thanks for the advice, I will check on the light as soon as I can.

Comment by seadave on March 2, 2010 at 10:33am: Wow! You fared much better than I did when I hit one 10 yrs ago in an old Honda Prelude. Same result for the deer, but the car suffered about $1000 in damage to a car with no collision coverage.

Comment by XCAPEPOD on March 2, 2010 at 9:29am: I did the same thing less than 24 hours after picking up my car in Sep 2008. There was no damage immediately apparent, however, upon further investigation, the driver's side headlight housing and mounting points were busted. The plastic panels were also shoved back a hair from the impact. I loosened the panel mounting screws to relieve the tension and the panels were fine (I love those plastic panels!). The headlight looked fine externally, but the back and underside of the housing was broken, so I had to order and install a new headlight.

I hit the deer pretty square on the front front of the car so I believe the force of the impact was distributed fairly well, except that the front shoulder made contact with the headlight. All in all, I was thankful it was only a headlight. If I had been in my Civic, it would have been expensive body work.

Anyway, you might want to check both headlights and the plastic mounting points carefully.