Well, if 2006 wasn’t a bad enough year for me already! Seems fate had one last card to play and it came Saturday, (December 16), when on my way back from Mankato on Highway 14, a huge buck jumps out of the center highway divider and slams head first into the driver’s side of my Buick LeSabre. Needless to say, the deer wrecked the entire side of the car. I can’t even open the driver’s side door now. Luckily, it hit the side of the car and not the front or else it could have slammed right through the windshield.
All I saw was some fur in front of the side mirror and the next thing I knew there were pieces of my car flying out. I didn’t slow down at all until about five minutes later, so as not to crash into anyone else. I eventually pulled over to the side of the road and finished tearing some of the dangling pieces of plastic from the front tire well. Then we drove to the nearest town and duck-taped the turn signal light. Katryn called the local police and they came and looked at the car and I had to get an accident report. I then had to drive about 280 miles home to Iowa from Minnesota.
From what the insurance company told us so far, the car is pretty much totaled, since the repairs cost more than the value of the car. I keep going over the accident, but I can’t think of anyway I could have avoided the deer. It was totally dark already by 5 PM, and since it blindsided me by jumping from the center divider which was pretty much a wide ditch, it was very hard for me to see.
I am probably next to join the club as Kevin K. hit a deer last fall and then Dave S. hit one a couple weeks ago. Iowa City hired sharpshooters the last 5 years and have taken out over 1000 deer in this area but they keep multiplying. I think they have whistles you can put on your car but not sure if they work that well. Time to go back to horse and buggy! Good luck in finding a new vehicle and be glad that nobody except the deer was injured.
Apparently deer whistles don’t work or the studies done so far are inconclusive according to DeerCrash.com. Regardless I am now without my Buick, and have to look for another family car. Oh well, I was planning on getting a new car anyway, just not this soon.