And with a title like that, you know exactly what happened. I was on a trip down to Roanoke, and shortly after finishing up a visit with my parents, a deer was stupid enough to not look both ways, and we collided on 340 near the intersection with – and I kid you not – Killdeer Lane. I spotted the deer in advance, but unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough space for me to stop before we collided. The last two deer strikes that I had, with the Sable and with the original HR-V, I hit the deer broadside and it just sort of bounced off. This time, the deer hit and went down, going slightly under the front of the car. The deer managed to wander away and lay down near the road. I don’t know what sort of injuries it sustained, but it did not die on impact, or even shortly afterward. It looked like it was in a lot of pain at first, and I thought that it was going to just lay its head down and die, but then after sitting still for a little bit, it tried to get up and depart the scene, but quickly laid back down, and that’s where it remained, still alert.
The deer after it laid back down following its attempt to leave.
I suspected that after this collision, that deer was probably not long for this world. However, I felt badly for the deer because unlike other deer strikes that I’ve seen (particularly one in 2018 where I ran over a deer with the train), it did not die instantly, or at least very shortly thereafter. It probably would have been better for the deer if it had died instantly rather than what it got, where its injuries were probably fatal, but not bad enough to where it was a quick lights-out.
The car, meanwhile, was still drivable, and all considered, it came out pretty well. After a brief inspection as well as a test brake, I continued on. I stopped at White’s Truck Stop in Raphine, which was a planned gas stop, and got photos there:
Left front, with a crack in the bumper and part of the grille punched out.
Straight-on view. Looks pretty normal save for the damage described earlier.
Right front view. Looks no worse for wear from this way.
Close-up view of the damage. And yes, that is deer feces on the car, as poop was apparently the deer’s immediate response to the collision.
This piece of electronic equipment, which was one of my front parking sensors, was knocked out of its spot during the collision. This had the effect of knocking all of the parking sensors offline, and that produced some scary looking warnings on the dash.
The warnings on the dash, which only affected the parking sensor system.
I was surprised that this strike took the entire parking sensor system out, because when I got hit from behind in 2023, it damaged a few of the parking sensors on that side and caused some false warnings, but the system still worked. I imagine that cable and connector that I showed you was critical to the functioning of the whole system, and that once they fix that bit, the whole thing will be back in action.
But the good news is that other than the parking sensors and the minor damage to the front, everything else runs just fine, and the trip continued with only about five minutes of delay. All considered, this car did pretty well, considering that this was a collision from a relatively high speed (the speed limit had just gone up to 55), even though I was braking hard when we made contact. The Sable and the original HR-V both looked a lot worse following their own run-ins with deer. This time around, the front license plate wasn’t even damaged. Honda has once again impressed me with their vehicles’ performance during collisions.
So now the insurance claim is submitted, and I need to get together with the folks at CRG, which is the body shop that I use in Rockville. It’s unfortunate any time that I need to use them, but they are some of the nicest people that you will ever meet, and we often end up chatting for a long time whenever I stop by, i.e. the kind of place where Elyse has to come drag me out because we’ve been chatting for so long. And then after dropping the car off at CRG, Enterprise is right up the street within walking distance (and I usually do walk), and I’ll end up with a rental car of some sort for the duration of the repair. I figure that it will be in the shop for about a week getting a new front bumper and grille put on, as well as getting the parking sensors fixed. And then it should be good as new.