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On hitting deer

D

dbellpe

New member
Joined
Nov 5, 2011
Location
Oakland
Moto(s)
2003 Yamaha fz1
I once hit a deer about the size of a large dobie. I did so on my current bike, a Yam FZ-1. It wedged, feet forward betwwen my faring and the front fender. And made a soud like "eeeeee!" Either that or it was what I call "Dunlop on venison" - But, what I found amazing is that within a month I met another rider who had hit a deer and not crashed! I've been riding for over 40 years yet, until then, never met anyone else who had come out of such an encounter without serious harm being done to them! And I THOUGHT I was so special for a few weeks!
 
I've heard the trick is, if you cannot avoid the crash stand your bike perfectly upright, tuck, gas it and aim for the deer's center of mass. The hope being that with enough forward momentum, you might slice straight through the deer at best, and at worst continue going forward and fall over.

Don't take my word for it though until we get the experts in here. I know there are at least a few BARF'ers who have hit deer and kept going.
 
sliverstorm said:
I've heard the trick is, if you cannot avoid the crash stand your bike perfectly upright, tuck, gas it and aim for the deer's center of mass. The hope being that with enough forward momentum, you might slice straight through the deer at best, and at worst continue going forward and fall over.

Don't take my word for it though until we get the experts in here. I know there are at least a few BARF'ers who have hit deer and kept going.
Click to expand...

^this is how you die.

The Worst thing to do is speed up when you know your gonna hit it. It just multiplies the force your bike and body experience during impact. I read this in some Renound motorcycle book (forget the name but its one of the major ones everyone suggests) which said speeding up was popular theory that does not end well. There will always be someone who did it and got lucky to have it work though so que counter arguments!
 
give them a helmet tap.. the deers will leave for fear of a j-walking ticket.
 
ALWAYS try to stop. NEVER aim for the deer, and certainly never accelerate.

But I've seen or heard somewhere that if you know you aren't going to stop in time, let off the brake right at impact and stand the bike straight up. And I can't remember if you are supposed to tense your arms for the impact or relax them.

And I hope I never have to test any of that out.
 
Several years back I witnessed a guy cut clean through a deer but he did crash. He was about 100 feet in front of me, headed the opposite direction...deer must have been running about 30 mph when it came out the the ditch into the path of the rider, it happened so fast he didnt have time to even think about gas or brake.

I can say though.... that deer was sliced very cleanly in half. It split right behind the shoulder blades of the front legs. Almost looked like a butcher did it..... it was that clean a cut.
 
I've heard that you should ride toward the direction of its ass as it will most likely run forward if it moves.
 
I've probably heard of more people getting hurt trying to swerve around a deer than just hitting the fugger. I've heard of riders slicing through deers but I wouldn't accelerate to join the club. I, myself, try to scrub off as much speed as possible before any potential impact. Just remember, they often travel in a group.
 
I believe the concept is if you are hard on the brake at time of impact, the front of the bike low, and your weight is shifted heavily forward, so when you hit, you are very likely to somersault and land rather ungracefully. By contrast, if you aim for back of deer (they could jump forward and you miss them), decide there is no way to stop in time, and accelerate, then the front of the bike comes up, you shift back in the seat, and the acceleration gives you more cutting power all of which (minorly?) increase your chance of a more graceful exit. I personally think the odds are bad both ways however.
 
I hit one coming out of Klamath Falls two years ago. Got hard on the brakes and rode a straight line (which is important). I got lucky and hit its back leg with the front tire. Made the sound like hitting a basketball with a bat. He spun out, I stayed up with no real damage. I managed to go from about 70mph to 15 before I hit it. The damn thing zigged and zagged so many times before we hit there was not much you can do to swerve around one so just hold your line.
 
Sean90 said:
^this is how you die.

The Worst thing to do is speed up when you know your gonna hit it. It just multiplies the force your bike and body experience during impact. I read this in some Renound motorcycle book (forget the name but its one of the major ones everyone suggests) which said speeding up was popular theory that does not end well. There will always be someone who did it and got lucky to have it work though so que counter arguments!
Click to expand...


Siverstorm didn't say speed up, he said gas it.

"wheelie for safety"
 
sliverstorm said:
I've heard the trick is, if you cannot avoid the crash stand your bike perfectly upright, tuck, gas it and aim for the deer's center of mass. The hope being that with enough forward momentum, you might slice straight through the deer at best, and at worst continue going forward and fall over.

Don't take my word for it though until we get the experts in here. I know there are at least a few BARF'ers who have hit deer and kept going.
Click to expand...

Sean90 said:
^this is how you die.
The Worst thing to do is speed up when you know your gonna hit it.
Click to expand...
Though I'm not expounding on events (in the worst of my four deer/bike collisions) with the intention of it being seen as "how to" advice for what anyone else should do, I am posting the personal experience details as that they are almost verbatim to what Siverstorm posted. These being actual events as they occurred one fateful night, about fifteen years ago, on the top of Hwy 35, between Alices and Four-Corners.

There's no question in my mind that in this worst-case form of unavoidable impact with an animal of this size, and no time/distance to effectively reduce any speed of value, survival in what appeared in the seconds prior to impact to likely be a serious or fatal collision, doing the following actions provided the best possible outcome (walking away with only a broken big toe and sprained knee).

Deer was standing completely broadside, dead-center in the middle of my lane, directly over a blind rise. Impossible to see the deer until the headlight settled over the rise, which was less than 2 seconds from the moment of totally (at that point) unavoidable impact.

The decision for consciously getting completely OFF the front brake (after a brief moment of maybe a second for shedding a few MPH) at the moment of impact with the deer; being done to get the weight off the front end of the bike. Having still had braking on, and the weight all forward, would have surely otherwise resulted in an instant cartwheel crash over the top at impact with the deer's body; tossing my body high into the air and crashing down onto the pavement ahead.

Getting my body low, back, and braced on the bike right before impact also being done for the very same reason of trying keep the forces as low and directed forward as possible, to resist the tendency fo the bike to otherwise pivot around the front wheel and flip me (and the bike) over the top.

The thought of getting back on the bike and ensuring it hit the deer first, being that the bike's greater mass than the deer (and greater mass than myself) could be utilized in a cattle-guard effect to move the mass of the deer away and clear a path to continue forward after impact.

Knowing that being into the throttle (rather than off the gas) stabilizes a bike, and gives a bike a defined direction of travel that it is fighting to continue to travel, I elected to take that approach just prior to front of the bike's contact with the deer's torso.

I guess it's along the same philosophy as in football where two players are going to collide in a hard block. The player that focuses the greatest amount of force/energy directed into the other party usually wins out, with the meaker guy often getting knocked hard to the ground.

All the decisions and actions above were decided upon in a very split-second window of time that was offered between initial sighting to the point of impact in this worst-case incident. Due to the relativley high speed of travel at the time (my young/stupid decision) and pending direct impact, despite the above action plan I still had visions of this moment being "my last ride" event. I could see the RIP thread on BARF in the making. :(

Basically it came down to a "what have I got to lose" mindset at that point, knowing that any other action plan would have almost guaranteed a horrific outcome for my body/life.

So what was the impact, to post-impact outcome?

  • - front fairing/headlight/frame area directly impacted deer's torso

    - force of impact tore through deer's body, splitting it into two halves that initially folded around either side of the bike as the bike (and I) drove through it

    - rear half of deer impacted my left knee and boot as I was passing through (causing broken big toe and spained knee)

    At that point I remember the warm thoughts going through my mind of "Damn, I'll still up!". Unfortunately that moment of euphoria was short-lived, as the upper half of the deer wasn't through with me yet!

    - upper half of deer wrapped around right side of bike, and eventually became wedged under the rear tire as the bike continued on for 50 feet or more past the point of initial impact, still upright

    - finally the rear tire rolled up over this wedged section of the deer, slowly lifting the rear end of the bike upward (a foot or so?), and rotating it out to the side. At that point it felt like a giant hand had just slid the bike out from under me, with the bike lowsiding and me going off on the left side and beginning a very long slide down the roadway. The bike sliding on it's plastic and metal for another 50 yards or more past the point at which I came to a stop.

So basically the steps taken in this last-ditch survival effort, in this particular worst possible case unavoidable (at that point) broadside impact of a moderate sized (100 lbs, or less?) deer, did succeed in allowing me to live through the event, get up and walk away (albeit with the sore knee and broken toe) to ride another day.

A new front fairing, fender, headlight, lever, a few incidentals and some paint were the extent of what it took to bring the bike back into use for another couple years, and 30K miles of continued backroad riding.

Was there luck involved in the outcome in this horrible event? Absoutely, I'll be the first to raise the flag on that!

Despite that acknowledgement, if I were ever faced with this exact same scenario in the future (every single element being identical), would I do the same thing? Based on the antidotal evidence of the outcome of events from that night; ABSOLUTELY! :wow

Do I ever want to face another instance to retry that process? HELL NO!!!! Avoid those critters at all costs!!! :thumbdown
 
I hit and killed a deer 3 years ago on my R1. I was on San Pablo dam Rd travelling South at a 'brisk' pace.

The deer jumped out and did the run back - run forward dance of death - all while I was braking to the point of lofting the rear.

I realized that I could not stop in the available distance and could not swerve round it as it kept moving back and forth.

At the last moment I got off the brake (because I didnt want to flip over when I hit it) tucked back and low and gassed it hard - to make the front light).

I hit the deer hard and flipped it over the top of the bike.

The impact smasked every piece of glass and plastic on the front of my bike, bent the radiatior around the header pipes and left a foot long strip of flesh and fur wedged between the tire and wheel on each side of the front wheel.

The bike stayed upright and I was unhurt. I was able to ride the bike home before it lost all of its coolant from the split rad.

I got some strange looks riding a smashed up bike covered in blood and guts though. My wife and daughter both nearly passed out when I turned up on the driveway.

So take it from me:

1) keep the bike upright and straight
2) brake as hard as you can
3) dont try to steer round it becasue it will almost certainly move and you will be tipped over and you cant slow down too well tipped over
4) if you are not going to stop in time, get off the brakes, tuck, slide back and gas it at the last moment :thumbup
 
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dbellpe said:
I once hit a deer about the size of a large dobie. I did so on my current bike, a Yam FZ-1. It wedged, feet forward betwwen my faring and the front fender. And made a soud like "eeeeee!" Either that or it was what I call "Dunlop on venison" - But, what I found amazing is that within a month I met another rider who had hit a deer and not crashed! I've been riding for over 40 years yet, until then, never met anyone else who had come out of such an encounter without serious harm being done to them! And I THOUGHT I was so special for a few weeks!
Click to expand...

Deer are like insects, they can be really small or really big.
Given a choice, always take the small deer...

No two deer hits are going to be the same, there are so many variables, including, bike type, speed, direction, road surface, rider weight, experience, tendencies, size of deer, vector of deer, momentum of deer, weight of deer, antlers, no antlers, speed of deer, rider's gear, road pitch, camber, temperature, additional traffic, other stationary objects on roadside, and I could go on and on.

Your best bet is to always wear the best gear you can buy, and expect the unexpected, keep your skills sharp, be ready to act if you're confronted by a deer, or be able to survive the best you can if you have no chance to avoid impact.

If it were not for my Aerostich Roadcrafter, Arai Quantum, Sidi boots, Helimot Gloves, I am positive that I might not have survived the deer collision I had in 2006. If you see how the Superhawk fared, it looks as though no one would have walked away from that crash.
I vote for being ready for anything!
 
Last edited:
Gary J said:
Though I'm not expounding on events (in the worst of my four deer/bike collisions) with the intention of it being seen as "how to" advice for what anyone else should do, I am posting the personal experience details as that they are almost verbatim to what Siverstorm posted. These being actual events as they occurred one fateful night, about fifteen years ago, on the top of Hwy 35, between Alices and Four-Corners.

There's no question in my mind that in this worst-case form of unavoidable impact with an animal of this size, and no time/distance to effectively reduce any speed of value, survival in what appeared in the seconds prior to impact to likely be a serious or fatal collision, doing the following actions provided the best possible outcome (walking away with only a broken big toe and sprained knee).

Deer was standing completely broadside, dead-center in the middle of my lane, directly over a blind rise. Impossible to see the deer until the headlight settled over the rise, which was less than 2 seconds from the moment of totally (at that point) unavoidable impact.

The decision for consciously getting completely OFF the front brake (after a brief moment of maybe a second for shedding a few MPH) at the moment of impact with the deer; being done to get the weight off the front end of the bike. Having still had braking on, and the weight all forward, would have surely otherwise resulted in an instant cartwheel crash over the top at impact with the deer's body; tossing my body high into the air and crashing down onto the pavement ahead.

Getting my body low, back, and braced on the bike right before impact also being done for the very same reason of trying keep the forces as low and directed forward as possible, to resist the tendency fo the bike to otherwise pivot around the front wheel and flip me (and the bike) over the top.

The thought of getting back on the bike and ensuring it hit the deer first, being that the bike's greater mass than the deer (and greater mass than myself) could be utilized in a cattle-guard effect to move the mass of the deer away and clear a path to continue forward after impact.

Knowing that being into the throttle (rather than off the gas) stabilizes a bike, and gives a bike a defined direction of travel that it is fighting to continue to travel, I elected to take that approach just prior to front of the bike's contact with the deer's torso.

I guess it's along the same philosophy as in football where two players are going to collide in a hard block. The player that focuses the greatest amount of force/energy directed into the other party usually wins out, with the meaker guy often getting knocked hard to the ground.

All the decisions and actions above were decided upon in a very split-second window of time that was offered between initial sighting to the point of impact in this worst-case incident. Due to the relativley high speed of travel at the time (my young/stupid decision) and pending direct impact, despite the above action plan I still had visions of this moment being "my last ride" event. I could see the RIP thread on BARF in the making. :(

Basically it came down to a "what have I got to lose" mindset at that point, knowing that any other action plan would have almost guaranteed a horrific outcome for my body/life.

So what was the impact, to post-impact outcome?

  • - front fairing/headlight/frame area directly impacted deer's torso

    - force of impact tore through deer's body, splitting it into two halves that initially folded around either side of the bike as the bike (and I) drove through it

    - rear half of deer impacted my left knee and boot as I was passing through (causing broken big toe and spained knee)

    At that point I remember the warm thoughts going through my mind of "Damn, I'll still up!". Unfortunately that moment of euphoria was short-lived, as the upper half of the deer wasn't through with me yet!

    - upper half of deer wrapped around right side of bike, and eventually became wedged under the rear tire as the bike continued on for 50 feet or more past the point of initial impact, still upright

    - finally the rear tire rolled up over this wedged section of the deer, slowly lifting the rear end of the bike upward (a foot or so?), and rotating it out to the side. At that point it felt like a giant hand had just slid the bike out from under me, with the bike lowsiding and me going off on the left side and beginning a very long slide down the roadway. The bike sliding on it's plastic and metal for another 50 yards or more past the point at which I came to a stop.

So basically the steps taken in this last-ditch survival effort, in this particular worst possible case unavoidable (at that point) broadside impact of a moderate sized (100 lbs, or less?) deer, did succeed in allowing me to live through the event, get up and walk away (albeit with the sore knee and broken toe) to ride another day.

A new front fairing, fender, headlight, lever, a few incidentals and some paint were the extent of what it took to bring the bike back into use for another couple years, and 30K miles of continued backroad riding.

Was there luck involved in the outcome in this horrible event? Absoutely, I'll be the first to raise the flag on that!

Despite that acknowledgement, if I were ever faced with this exact same scenario in the future (every single element being identical), would I do the same thing? Based on the antidotal evidence of the outcome of events from that night; ABSOLUTELY! :wow

Do I ever want to face another instance to retry that process? HELL NO!!!! Avoid those critters at all costs!!! :thumbdown
Click to expand...


Most excellent detailing the details and thoughts involved...Granted, there isn't a technique or "rules" to handle something that is wildly differing in every encounter with every suicidal critter...But there is a way of thinking, to have the best positive outcome....and You (andOldMadBrit) did that, and that is a "rule" that applies.
The "what do I have to lose?" thing is so very critical in the ever different situations that the public road is delivering, in all the situations that pop up..It has to be a practiced way of thinking...at a subconscous level, because (It seems to me), rational conscous thinking is too slow.
 
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I don't know how much there is to do with respect to a deer hit. Scrubbing off speed is good but the one thing you have to understand is more often than not the little hooved assholes appear like an aberration. One moment clear road next moment DEER.
Having been jumped by one of these manifestations of evil I doubt that there was any way to save myself or the bike.

The only thing I do agree with is getting the front end as light as possible to avoid subducting under the shitting and pissing mass that you are about to become one with.

Deer are a fate game, when it's your turn it's your turn. Asesome if you can evicerate the mofo and ride your gore covered machine to victory but I don't believe that's skill, I think it's luck.

My :2cents
 
Happy Hornet said:
I don't know how much there is to do with respect to a deer hit. Scrubbing off speed is good but the one thing you have to understand is more often than not the little hooved assholes appear like an aberration. One moment clear road next moment DEER.
Having been jumped by one of these manifestations of evil I doubt that there was any way to save myself or the bike.

The only thing I do agree with is getting the front end as light as possible to avoid subducting under the shitting and pissing mass that you are about to become one with.

Deer are a fate game, when it's your turn it's your turn. Asesome if you can evicerate the mofo and ride your gore covered machine to victory but I don't believe that's skill, I think it's luck.

My :2cents
Click to expand...

:thumbup That's A Big part of it...Scrub off all the speed Ya can in the whatever time Ya got. Ya never know which way things will go.
I killed one deer that was running backwards (back pedaling those hoof things) and I was thinking smart deer, I've got this situation clear, then at the perfect last nano second, it jumped forward into a perfect collision, that divided its front and rear with my path.

I've just seen way too many Motorcycle rders get so focused on braking...they lose sight of the main thing..everything else, as they slam into the thing they were stopping for.
 
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