Deer Strike (not mine)

Wow! Great clip. I played it several times and I still didn't see it coming.

A couple of questions though - how did they get the deer to cooperate while they were filming? Did they get it in one take?

Ya gotta read this

Here is the best deer strike story I have ever read. Stolen from ADV Rider, they stole it from?????

R-Rated

Date: Wed, 30 May 2001

This is your first, last and only warning: The following story describes my 60mph deerstrike in great detail. Graphically, too, so delete now if you are sensitive to language, squeamish about gore, or are a tree-hugging, card-carrying member of the SPCA (while I'd like to say no animals were harmed in the production of this story, that wasn't quite the case).

Executive Summary:

Place: East-central Oregon, HWY 395, south of John Day, north of Burns, Oregon

Time: 5:04 AM PDT, Thursday, May 24, 2001
Conditions: 55 degrees F, clear, bright daylight, completely dry, outstanding road surface
Speed at impact: 61mph
Damage: Massive bodywork damage, upper and lower fairings smashed, fairing pockets cracked, inner front fairing gone, front fender destroyed, radiator severely dented (but serviceable), both FIAMM horns destroyed, right wingtip cover missing, left wingtip cover cracked, windshield valance crushed.

Final Score:

Warchild = 1
Bambi = 0
Night Train = -1

The Story:

See why I HATE these ****ing deer so much?

So there I was, riding to Gerlach and the infamous MASS GOLD endurance event. I had departed well after midnight, cruising down HWY 395, one of THE FINEST motorcycle roads to be found anywhere. I was just coming down a hill to an incredibly flat valley that stretched perhaps 1-2 miles before the next series of hills. This valley was flat, Flat, FLAT, with nothing but sagebrush that was only 12-18" high. I looked long and hard for any range cattle or other furry critters that could cause problems. Nope, not a thing on this prairie but sagebrush. I relaxed and descended into the valley floor.

I was approximately halfway across the valley when I went into another instrument scan. I checked the tachometer, looked up at the Sigma, then down to the temp gauge, then looked up to see the 75-lb doe looking right at me, standing directly in front of the bike, about 50 feet from impact.

The Sigma revealed I was traveling at 61 mph, which means I had about a half a second to do something. However, there was nothing to be done. I knew I was going to strike the deer, and even the deer looked like she knew she was about to die. As my brain realized that an accident was imminent, the classic perception of "time slowing down" kicked in, allowing all the following to happen prior to impact:

The first thing I did was silently scream at the deer, "Now, just where in the **** did you come from?!" This was just too unbelievable.... it's not like this deer emerged from a forest, and it's not like it had any place to hide!! [Note: surveying the crash scene afterward, I saw a somewhat more sizeable sage brush that the doe was (obviously) sleeping/hiding behind; it was about 24" high, immediately next to the point of impact]

I began an attempt to swerve behind the doe, started to push the right grip downward when (again, given that perception of "slow time") I realized it wasn't going to do any good, and I had better not be leaning when we struck, so I stood the bike up so I would have a "clean" impact. By now I was about 10 feet from the doe, and looked right into her eyes. Two thoughts flashed "Man, is my bride ever going to be pissed at me if I die like this...." and a second thought: "well, it's lookin' like there will be one less rider at MASS GOLD...".

I tore into her body at 61 mph.

The doe had decided to take another step before I hit her, so the front wheel split her body roughly mid-section, such that the forward 2/3's of the deer fell along the left side of the bike, the rear 1/3 of the carcass went down the right side. It was like you could feel and hear the sounds of cartilage, bone and sinew being snapped and torn asunder. My right lower leg was smashed with the rear hindquarters of the severed doe.

But what got to me was the ****. Literally. ****! Deer ****.... lot's and LOT'S of deer ****!

The ENTIRE RIGHT HALF of the forward fuselage area was no longer Honda red.... it was brown and green!!! DEER ****!!!! I could not believe my eyes! Not only was there a massive amount of deer **** on the road, but my bike front and right side were AWASH in deer ****!! How can a creature hold this much **** in their bodies AND STILL BE ALIVE?!!! What, do these deer have to "**** on demand" for a living, or something?! There was an UNBELIEVEABLE amount of intestinal matter in every single crevice of the bike. Lovely aroma......


Part 1

Part 2


Since I had begun a right swerve, I was pointing slightly right when we struck, and after severing the animal, the bike was now pointed to the far right, and into the ditch beyond. I stabbed both brakes and start leaving fresh Dunlop and Metzeler on the road. My speed starts to bleed off, but I see with crystal clarity that I am fast approaching the edge of the road..... and snow-melt sand is *inside* the edge of the white line! "Guess I'm done bleeding off speed", I think to myself. Just before I reach the sand, I release the brakes as I look at the Sigma. It says 53 mph as the ST1100 leaves the road, and flies airborne into the ditch.

As we leave the road, I get up on the footpegs and assume my best Jeremy McGrath riding stance. The front tire slams down into the ditch and the rear end bounces up to try to pop me off the bike, but I'm ready for it, and hang on somehow. I bounce and hop all over the ditch, which is roughly 7 feet wide and three feet deep. I keep looking for the drainage ditch that will end my off-road adventure (and probably my young life) in an instant, the very same way Jack Baird got his serious injuries. First order of business, however, is to avoid the telephone pole that is fast approaching on the left. I manage to sneak past the pole, even though it knocked off my left mirror housing (amazingly enough, the post-accident inspection revealed not a single mark on the mirror housing... go figure!)

By now I am down to 30 mph, and I'm beginning to believe I might live if no Jack Baird drainage-ditch surprises me. About that time, I realize, hey, I'd better do something about getting the bike out of the ditch while I am still moving, or I'll be in this ditch a long time.

So I gently apply a little countersteering, and amazingly, the ST "walks up" the side of the ditch, trading speed for elevation. I am almost to the top of the ditch, and am only going 5 mph!! I finally come out of the ditch, and roll onto the paved shoulder just as I came to a gentle stop!!!! I slowly put the kickstand down. I stepped off the bike and immediately ran around to looked at the front end damage.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The front fairings are all smashed. The fender is barely hanging on. The lower gray fairing has major holes torn all through it.... and there is a hoof in one of the holes!! The left middle fairing is cracked from top to bottom. The inner middle fair is..... gone!! COMPLETELY GONE!!! The right middle fairing is severely damaged with razor-sharp jagged edges that did most of the deer-slicing, along with the right tip-over guard. The force of the impact buckled and cracked the right (lockable) fairing pocket. Both side maintenance panels took impact damage. The right FIAMM electric clamshell horn is flattened and looks like a frisbee. The other FIAMM horn looks worse. The radiator has a sizeable dent in the right side, but appears intact. I expected to have radiator fluid everywhere, but the cooling system remained intact.

My Night Train was hit hard.... but still serviceable.

As I surveyed the damage, the adrenaline from the near-accident started to wear off, and was being replaced by a seething, raging anger. That ****ing deer..... just LOOK at the mess it has made! Then, the final straw..... I discovered that the deer had cause me to lose the PIAA 910s! When I discovered this...... all my attention turn to the deer, still 250 feet back. Shaking with rage, I reached for the Browning, pulled back the slide, chambered a round, and started walking back to the carcass.

As I slowly walked back to the point of impact, I looked over to the left to see the deep, long furrow the ST1100 had made as it ran through the ditch and back up onto the highway. I walked past by the telephone pole that knocked off my mirror housing. As I approach the deer, I have to step around various organs and deer splatter to make my way around to the front 2/3 of the carcass. I lean over the head of the deer and look into her soft, brown eyes. I gently whisper "**** you", then empty the clip into her.

There's nothing like the sound of brass casings tingling on asphalt. Oh, yeah.

With the post-accident mental therapy complete, I reloaded the Browning and put it away. I walked back to the bike. Jesus, what a mess! I could not - could NOT - get rid of the stench of deer ****.... and no wonder, IT WAS EVERYWHERE!!! I dig into the Ventura bag for my Polaroid, and almost retch as I noticed that the entire right side of the bag is also encrusted with deer ****. I turned back and face the carcass, "HOW MUCH **** CAN YOU DEER *POSSIBLY* CARRY?!!!!!!! I was just stunned at the amount of deer feces distributed about the bike. When I get to the Polaroid, I see that it has no film. Damn, I REALLY wanted to get a few pictures of the carcass, but it was not to be.

I got back on the bike, and slowly made the 30-ish miles to Burns. It was completely un-nerving to look down through the opening of the triple-tree area (normally covered by the inner middle fairing) and see asphalt whirling by! And, DAMN, the smell emerging off the exhaust lines was INCREDIBLE!!! Upon reaching Burns, I rolled into a Texaco and dashed inside to buy one of those disposable cameras. I shot about a dozen pictures of the bike at various angles, then rolled over to the car wash area and borrowed their hose. I scrubbed and scrubbed for 45 minutes, and STILL couldn't get rid of the deer **** stench that came from the engine bay. I walked 200 feet away from the bike, and could STILL smell that deer ****! DAMN, that's some lingering aroma... or so I thought.

Later on that morning, I stopped in Lakeview, Oregon for some gas. Went to the restroom, and as I washed my hands, I took a brief look in the mirror. There, in my moustache, under the right nostril, was a nice dollop of green deer ****, all crusty and hard.

****ing deer......

- Warchild '00 CBR1100XX '97 ST1100

Great Clip!

I watched that clip half a dozen times and finally in the full screen mode, I saw a couple of things of interest.

He had JUST passed a "Deer Crossing" sign and the lead rider had braked just prior to the deer. Interestingly enough, the lead rider's brake light sparks 2 seconds before impact of the second rider, so the two second rule was observed, but it's possible that at that very split second, the 2nd rider was checking a mirror or something else and lost the critical reaction time to possibly avoid that accident.

Watch it in full screen mode for a completely different (better) sense and view.

Thanks! Good stuff. Who wants fresh venison?

Deer are vermin, nothing more. Sorry but those who feed them and think they are cute, have never hit one. I vote for year round hunting season, lets thin these denizons of the street down to a level that they are a novelty again. (just my .02)

Well, where are they when I'm hunting them? Yes, I did shoot a couple of them this year, and I almost nailed three of them with the truck yesterday morning. And I did smuck one with the old airhead a few years ago. Killed her and her unborn, killed the bike, but I walked after waking up in the ditch. But I showed her - I took her home and ATE HER!!!. Kinda expensive venison, tho.

Take a walk in the woods in the winter some time and see how the deer have eaten everything below about 6 feet. They really have overpopulated since we killed all their predators.

Hello; During the 9 years that I drove the night shift crummie to and from my job in the woods as a night shift mechanic in a logging camp, I probably hit more then 200 deer. Now it's a rare occasion to see a deer in the woods, bears cougars and the weather has caused a downward swing in the deer population lately. The thing I learned about deer strikes is to not go off the road to avoid hitting them. The crummie can easily absorb the impact, but your passengfers will be injured if you go off the road avoiding the deer. After 1000 trips, you know where the deer are likely to be, and a little of how they behave.

I have never hit a deer on a motorcycle, and appreciate what damage can be caused. I was hit by a cardinal in Tennesee in the sixtys, and it knocked me right off the bike. It hit me mid chest, I didn't see it coming. The bike continued down the road while I slid on my ass trying to breathe after being hit by a Larry Holmes body shot.

My technique around possible deer strikes is to force the bike to take the impact, try to be going as slow as possible, and to stay upright. I hope I'll never have to use it.

I read an article several years back about a jogger being gored to death by a buck in rut.

The doe was probably running from a buck in rut. "Rut" is the one week out of the year when a buck can access a female.

If you only got to have sex one week out of a year, the females would run from you, also.

Better to hit a doe than to hit a buck in rut.

Hello; I did get a buck stuck in the rear view mirror (drivers side) one time. He was moving off the road as I went by and turned back just as I cmae by. He turned his head away from me and one of the tines of his horn hooked on the mirror brace. I stopped and couldn't talk anyone onn the crummie to get out and detach the buck. I rolled down the window and guided the horn out by twisting his head this way and that. He didn't run off as I was expecting, but stood there gathering his wits. I backed up and turned out the lights until I saw him amble off.

One time a big black bear jumped on to the road just in front of me as I was rounding a corner. The bear dissappeared under the front of the crummie, I stomped on the brakes and slid on the gravel for about a hundred feet9 I was going 100 kph) Finally when we stopped, the bear stood up on his hind legs, and gave me a look I'll never forget. If looks could kill, I'd be dead 100 times over. I just gassed it and as the front of the crummie rose up, he scooted off the road in lots of time to miss me. When I dropped off my passengers I got out and noticed that the liscence plate was bent around the bottom of the bumper. I guess I just plowed him along on the bumper.

Everyone else knows, but

could you tell me what a "crummie" is?

Crummie?

I'm glad you asked, Cliffy!

Effective clip for heads up

Wow - I just watched the clip. (Didn't get a chance at work yesterday.) Even though I knew it was about Keith hitting a deer, I still jumped back in my chair at the impact - both times.
The closest encounter I have ever had with a deer was in my car. I was looking down at a CD cover (love to read liner notes - probably not a good idea on the freeway), looked up and there he was in the middle of my lane, I didn't have time to do anything and when I drove by him he was so close I could see his tonsils just by looking up his bung hole! My mirror must have missed him by an inch or so at 78 mph.
There might be a "shortage" of deer up where the Donkey Doctor lives, but they are crawling all over Michigan.
As I have said, on most of my rides my eyes are scanning for deer more than cars...

Hello; A crummie is what us loggers call crew transportation. It could be a bus, a six pack (four door pickup truck), a cattle car (a truck with a crew box on the back) a cut away (one of those van fronts with a box behind). I thought the whole world used that term.

Don't feel bad, DD- most people think a logging donkey eats grass.

Speaking of other animals- one summer during college I was working on a crew maintaining the medians of I-91 in Northern VT. One fall morning I rode up to where we were working and pulled into the turn-around to park. I was about 50 yards from a full-grown bull moose, who took no notice of me whatsoever. Moose don't worry about much. I watched as this guy walked up the bank, stepped onto the shoulder, and stood there with his nose within a foot or two of the white line. Three 18-wheelers went by no more than 5 feet from his face and he never even flinched. If you're in moose country, watch out.

Well Donkey Dr., I'm sure folks in your line of work use it the world over! When I was in boot camp we sometimes rode in what were referred to as cattle trucks because that's exactly what they looked like- a tractor truck pulling a semi-trailer that had a bunch of windows on the sides. It also had a low floor so we could easily step in and out. The inside had benches along the walls, and there were poles for standing riders in the middle to hang onto much as in a subway car. The trailers were short so one was good for the better part of a platoon. While the accomodations were spartan, the ride quality was actually quite good- it felt very smooth and well-damped.

Hey Veg.A crummy is much smaller than what you described:it is a pickup or a small bus tasked to take 10 or so guys to and from a logging show.
Pal of mine from michigan got his K done hard by a sudden deer.
I hit deer in my car,killed it,but it broke my car pretty good too.There is always more than one,so if you congratulate yourself for missing one,keep the sphincter tight,because there are more.

Hit a small dog once on the bike,very disruptive,don't want to continue to do that!

I was riding with two friends in Idaho this past September. We had planned to get to McColl for the night, but it got dark before we got there. When we were not far away, we began catching up to a car. It gives me pause to think how little a cage driver can tell about how fast a bike is going, after discovering how long it took to realize that the car had suddenly slowed down quite a lot!

And then, even more suddenly, the cars lights went off, and it was pitch black!

We slowed down a great deal and we each managed to avoid the dark car that was now stopped square in the middle of the lane. As we passed on either side of it, we could see that there were billows of smoke coming out of it, and as we went through it, we realized the smoke was actually steam.

The car had hit a biggish doe square on and it destroyed the battery and enough else that the motor stopped and the lights went out.

We immediately stopped, came back, and parked the bikes on either side of the road, and put on our flashers, to warn approching vehicles, and then helped remove the destroyed Volvo from the road.

Hitting a stopped Volvo at speed is probably less forgiving than hitting a deer.

The deer is pretty scary too though when you consider how sturdily Volvos are made.