If you've ever had a deer/car collision, do you feel sorry for the deer?

Question

Hurting the animal makes me feel worse than the damage to my car.

Is this weird?

Answer 1

The feeling isn't weird, but how would you feel if someone died because of collision with a deer?. Don't get me wrong, I love animals, and there are a lot of deer in the area where I now live. There are devices that can be added to a vehicle that could aid in the prevention of accidents with animals, but most people don't take the time to install them. Yes I do have it on my vehicle. I look at it this way, because of construction, we have taken away their homes. They have the right of way, not me.

Answer 2

No. After all the deer is alive, the car isn't, and can be fixed by insurance. The bad part is people getting hurt or worse.. This is a big problem in some areas where hunting is not popular and so not allowed, the deer flourish. So what to do?

Answer 3

Not really, I'm sure your like anyone else and doesn't like seeing any animal in pain. But being in WI, It's just one of the many different ways deer get killed. What I find tragic is that over my career I've had two Car vs. Deer accidents where a person was killed because the driver tried to avoid hitting the deer and plowed into a tree or an oncoming car.

If you can safely avoid hitting a deer, great. But I know it sounds brutal, if you can't avoid the deer, hit it. A human life isn't worth a deer.

Answer 4

While I do not feel worse for the deer than for my car, I do not feel any animosity toward the deer. I hear people all the time getting upset when a deer runs out in front of them and they hit it. They scream about how there are too many deer in the area and people should be able to hunt year around. I actually look at the situation and realize that the deer population is not the problem, it is the urban sprawl that is causing the deer to have to migrate to other parts of the land. With all the new roads and housing going up everywhere, they have no choice but to cross paths with humans in some form. At my house, they actually come into the backyard and eat the grass along my fence. I don't mind and simply watch them to make sure that nothing happens to them or my fence. Then they move on. I also try to be more vigilant when I am in an area that used to be heavily populated with deer.

Answer 5

I have never had an accident like this, but know others who have. I do feel bad for the deer.

There are whistles you can buy if you live in an area where you might encounter a deer, which you attach to you car which prevents the deer from running onto the road. I had these and never even saw any deer near the road.

Answer 6

Thank God, I've never hit one or vice versa! I love deer and along the Garden State Parkway in NJ down toward the southern end, there are so many feeding at nite along side the highway.. Babies too.. I go extra slow til i'm outta that part. They seem to know not to cross tho.. Can't explain why.. Just once, on my way to Atlantic City, on the Parkway, and not very far down, in broad daylight, I saw something huge flying toward me and my car in the air. I was on the 3 lane expressway, and it was coming from the other side going the same way. It was a deer that a car over there had it and it was coming right toward me! I hit the brakes and so did all behind me. It landed on the road across the middle lane I was in, not far in front of me! I slowly made my way to the left around it and so did all behind me.. No accidents, Thank God! Then I feft sooo sad for the poor thing.. But, it was dead and not suffering. I shot a look to the other side of the Parkway and saw the car that hit it.. It was all pushed in up to front windshield and was pulling over to side of the road.. No accidents there either! But that car was destroyed! I think the driver was ok tho.. I had to keep going and could get over there anyhow, so I'm sure somebody else must have stopped to see how the driver was and to call police.. It was so sad, and very scary... If it had landed on my little sport car, I could be dead today! As long as I was not hurt tho, I wouldn't care too much about the car, like you.. but doing 65 miles per hr. and either hitting a deer that huge, or being hit by one flying threw the air, could have caused many accidents and injuries or even deaths.. God was with us all that day.. I'll never forget it tho..

Answer 7

I was on my way to work one morning and as I crested the top of a small hill, a whole herd was standing in the middle of the road less than 30 yards from me. It was dark and I didn't see them until the last minute. I took every evasive action I could but I still ended up hitting one.
I couldn't get any reception on my cell phone so I went to the next home up the road to call the Sheriff's Department. By the time we got back to the accident some troll had taken the deer.
I felt horrible for the animal. It was dark and I had no idea if the deer was dead yet when I took off to make the call. I new better than to approach a wounded animal for safety reasons. It made me angry that someone would stop and pick up road kill like that. We knew that someone had picked it up because there was blood at the side of the road but no blood tracks leading anywhere. The deputy and I searched the woods to make sure it hadn't wandered in there to die.
I have no problem with hunting because of the huge deer population we have here. My problem was with the jerk that took the deer. If the deer wasn't dead when they picked it up, I was left with horrible mental images of how they killed it as we heard no gun shots while I waited for the deputy to get there.
My car had about 8 grand in damages but thats what we pay insurace for. I didn't care about the car, it was repaired.

Answer 8

Not weird, but definitely uncommon. It just shows that you have a heart and you are not materialistic. I have no problem with deer hunting (although I don't hunt), since there are too many deer in my area and they do cause a lot of accidents, but the one time I hit a deer I felt horrible. I even feel bad when I hit a sparrow.

Answer 9

It's not weird.
You are just a compassionate person.
But you are not alone:
I read about Steve Martin taking a deer that he hit to the veterinarian and getting it treated, and then released back into the wild when it was healed.
Cost him thousands of dollars.

I hope you never lose that compassion.

Answer 10

Is this weird, no. That is one of the many things that separates us from most of the rest of the Animal Kingdom, is that many of us are born with a genetic desire to socialize with other things that live; to keep pets and grow gardens, rather than simply finding ways to feed ourselves. So no, this is not weird at all. And yes, the one time I've collided with a deer, I felt sorry. And the one time I collided with a dog, I felt sorry. And the one time I scrunched a wild rabbit, I felt sorry. And the one time a seagul failed to fly clear, I felt sorry. I even feel sorry every time my windshield gets cluttered up with bug juices and body parts.