I hit a deer on the way home last night.
Or, as Kathy at work says, I had a "hit and run." The deer ran out and hit me!
It's dark here by 6pm this time of year, so it was pitch black as I came around a curve that runs through a wooded area. There were 2 cars coming the other direction, and their headlights made it hard for me to see that there were 3 deer crossing the road and not just one. I kept braking and braking -- hard enough to make my bag fly off the passenger seat and onto the floor -- and I missed Deer 1 and Deer 2.
Deer 3 was not so lucky.
And neither was poor Radar, who looked kinda like the Terminator in that scene where his shades get knocked off and you can see the creepy red robot eye peeking out. Driver's side headlamp and a chunk of the fender in pieces on the road, I pulled off to the side and grabbed my phone.
Radar is cuter.
Lucky for me, the only thing terminated was the deer. Radar will be fine after a little (hopefully) cosmetic work. I was careful though -- I called the local towing company, who came out with a flatbed truck and gave Radar a ride back to their storage yard. Today they took it on to an area body shop, who then faxed me the paperwork to get the repair rolling. Fingers crossed that they're done by next weekend -- I still have my Subaru, but only until next Sunday, when my brother is flying out to drive it back to Colorado.
My commute is about 50% blacktop county roads through fields and woods. So I actually think I've done pretty good to go 7+ years without a deer strike. The sheriff's deputy who came to take my report said I was the 3rd deer accident of the evening already (to which I replied "Huh. Must be a party we don't know about." He laughed a little too hard at that.). And someone who lives near where I stopped said that there've been 4 deer accidents there in the past couple of months -- which makes me think there should be a sign. Maybe even a deer crosswalk. With a light.
