Return to my Jim Loy pages
Go to
my home page
© Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
A friend of mine, driving his pickup, played chicken with Bambi. Bambi lost. But it wasn't all that one sided. The pickup suffered extensive damage. And my friend was surly for months.
I've never hit a deer. Today, while driving from Bozeman to Kalispell, I slowed down for ten deer and three mailboxes. It turned out that I didn't have to slow down for the mailboxes. But it didn't hurt, either. The deer were less predictable. One was a juvenile, apparently all by itself. Cute.
Deer don't seem to really understand cars zooming around. And they don't know the rules of the road. They're probably just thinking about eating tulips.
Also see Wild Animals I Have Seen.
Addendum:
This spring, I saved the life of Ms. Bambi. I was following two other vehicles, with two motorcycles behind me, just north of Seeley Lake (MT), about 70 MPH, when I saw a deer moving out of the trees to the right. I aggressively applied my brakes. The deer nearly ran into the side of the car ahead of me, swerved left along the ditch, and then swerved onto the road ahead of me. I was going about 15 MPH by then, and came to a stop a few inches from the deer. The deer (which was fairly tall and very skinny) was wide-eyed with fear, as she ran (not very gracefully) across the road.