Once had an insurance guy tell me that, in the lower 48, more people are killed as a result of encounters with deer than with any other animal. As he told it, it's because people swerve trying to avoid killing the deer and end up going into the ditch or on a trip out "through the tules" or out into the other lane into a head-on at speed and ending up getting killed in the impact.
Over the years, I have had 4 encounters with the dreaded mule dear at highway speeds. Once you realize the only safe outcome is to just hold your position and hit the deer, you just hold the steering wheel with both hands and with the car pointing straight down your lane, take your foot off the accelerator and maybe apply the brakes as if you were going to come to a normal stop at a traffic light (if conditions permit). No swerving, not jamming on the brakes, no trip through the "barrow pit".
My two kids, when they were much younger were in the car during one of these encounters. My oldest, a girl about 10 at the time, woke up and asked, "Daddy, did you just kill Bambi?"
Sheesh............ What'cha gonna say???
They count as Comp claims; not Collision claims. It's like you were just sitting there in your car, minding your own business, and the deer ran into you at highway speed and committed suicide.
