Brief Sightings

[Cooper]

There was a huge accident on [highway #1 I take to school]. Far as I could tell, it was one car, but I spotted bits of the car ON FIRE.

I couldn't see the whole thing, because it was after my exit. Due to this accident, however, traffic was nearly at a stand-still for 10 miles.

I live in a very rural area. We don't handle traffic jams well, apparently. I haven't totally learned my lesson on why everyone will suddenly go slow on the highway, so when everyone started going approximately 5 mph, I passed, saw the line of cars as far as I could see, and respectfully merged back in.

We had people trying to merge into that mess. I would let them in, because I felt kinda sorry for them, and I couldn't see a lot of people doing it.

While waiting for a man to merge in, a guy honked his horn louder than I'd ever seen. Louder than people who honk at me when I misjudged how much time I had to merge--who have a very good reason for giving me a tonal "hey stupid!"

Dude, nobody's going anywhere.

--

In Michigan, hitting a deer is an inevitability. I got VERY close in Winter Storm 2013. I had to leave the house--my rabbit was out of food and she's bitten me to get my food before--so I head out. On 4th road to town, I saw a deer in the middle of the road. I tapped the brakes, realized that was a Bad Idea, and swerved around it.

The guy who was tailgating me backed off. ^^

--

My family was discussing 360s they'd done in the past, making me recall my 180. I was taking my sister to school. Living in a poor, rural neighborhood, and having to take her in before 6, the dirt trucks had not been out yet, AND it was my first winter driving.

Around minute 8--of a normal trip--and road 3 about to merge to road 4, we hit a patch of ice, and we spun around, ending up on the other side of the road in a ditch.

Now I'm on anti-anxiety pills, and one of the side effects is that pretty much nothing freaks me out anymore. I am AMAZING in difficult situations now. My sister starts sobbing, so I hug her and talk her down for a bit, but we have a problem.

We're in a Saturn. Not just any Saturn, but an 1993 one. It's made of plastic with a tiny engine that hates hills. Getting out of the ditch was going to be problematic.

Just as I started trying to rock us out, a man stopped and asked if we needed help. (I love our community for this.) He says he doesn't have anything to tow us with, but he offers to push us out with his truck. We aren't even late for her bus to [big town.]

Upon recounting the story to my suspected-aspergers-suffering-grandmother, she said I should have been concerned he'd chip the Saturn. I was just kinda "the piece of crap?"
---

[Jay 2K Winger]

Re: deer

The deer around here in Northern Virginia are getting acclimatized enough to suburban life that I have actually seen them look both ways before attempting to cross the road.

That's nothing compared to the deer I saw about a block away from the NRA Headquarters. I was like, "Dude, you got some balls."

[DeltaSierra]

I have only had one close encounter with a deer that fortunately didn't result in injury/death/damage. I had been driving home one evening and there's a hairpin turn that's notorious for black ice, so I slowed WAY down while going around it and a deer bounded in front of me. I clipped its back leg, and it fell and spun in circles on the ice, then it got back up and limped off into the woods. There wasn't even a scratch on my bumper.

My brother, as not so fortunate last month, he hit a buck head on and completely totalled the same car that he'd purchased from me just this past January. Total write off, but thankfully, he was fine.

[bhskittykatt]

I hit a baby deer once and I felt so bad. I had stopped to let a doe and her fawn cross, and as I started to move, a second fawn bolted out of the brush in front of me! I bumped it enough to knock it down. It got up and bounded off, though, so hopefully it was okay. (Hubs: "You know that they will do that sometimes just on adrenaline, even if they're seriously hurt?" Me: *throws hard objects at Hubs*)

As for spinning out, I've had my fair share. We don't get much snow here, and because of that, when we do get snow, city services are somewhat lacking. My paper route is on top of a hill. One morning in particularly bad snow, we tried to go up the hill....we spun out, we swerved, we slid back down while spinning around and bouncing off the curbs (there was no street parking and no ditches fortunately...I am much more careful on those roads!). There was a church parking lot that kind of looped around and up and ended about halfway up the hill, so we tried looping through that to see if that would get us close enough to the top to make it. We go through the parking lot, and as we turn out of it we're trying to also pick up some momentum. The car goes out onto the street while turning, keeps turning, wheeeee! Spun around all the way back to the bottom. I think we made almost a full 720 on that second attempt! (I think we did end up making it on another side street, but it took a while.)

[vikingchyk]

Re: deer

The deer around here in Northern Virginia are getting acclimatized enough to suburban life that I have actually seen them look both ways before attempting to cross the road.

That's nothing compared to the deer I saw about a block away from the NRA Headquarters. I was like, "Dude, you got some balls."

One of my co-irkers is a hunter, and about 3 years ago, he went to a rifle range here in MD, for practice for the upcoming deer season. During a break in the action, is that.....? Yup. Deer. On the range. Sauntering around, taunting them, because it wasn't deer season yet. Cocky bastards.

[wolfie]

That's nothing compared to the deer I saw about a block away from the NRA Headquarters. I was like, "Dude, you got some balls."

Just curious, but was that deer a transvestite - having not only balls, but a nice rack as well?

[Gilhelmi]

Only Female Reindeer keep their antlers all year long. I am just saying.

[Rock Lobster]

Slid in a circle on a major freeway in Cleveland. Saw myself headed for the side of a semi. I decided at that point that I was dead. Car stopped spinning and thank God traffic had stopped for me so I didn't hit anything or anyone. Got to work and it took my boss an hour to get me calmed down enough to work!

[EricKei]

Only encounter I've had with venison-on-the hoof was shortly after I moved up to MS...Deer crossed the road, two smaller ones were on the side of the road. I was stopped anyway, so I flashed my brights a couple of times to give them the go-ahead to cross...which they promptly did ^_^

[Shalom]

I was heading up the Thruway to work tonight when I see an entire freaking HERD of deer calmly munching on the grass on the side of the highway. There must have been at least eight of them.

Yesterday I saw a few in the same spot, but not this many.

The problem is, they're stuck there. There's a tall chain-link fence that separates the Thruway from the surrounding area (just outside of Sloatsburg, NY) and they were on the highway side of the fence. Can't go south because just south of there is a huge freaking boulder like 10 stories high that comes almost up to the edge of the highway: they'd have to walk in single file to get between it and the guardrail, and if they get past that they're in the tandem trailer lot. They're not likely to go north either because that would take them into the Sloatsburg Service Area, which is full of people 24/7. I can't figure out how they got where they are in the first place.