Heh, around here at a neighboring firehouse they have a venisson dinner every year as a fund raiser. The meat is not purchased! It is none other than road kill. Anytime a deer is killed on the road, they call one of the members of that fire department who comes and gets the deer and does whatever he has to do to prepare the meat for storage. From what I understand, he has less than an hour to get the deer from the road, skinned, processed and in the freezer (I think he has access to a freezer at a meat packing plant). I guess this process starts happening a few months before the dinner. I think they usually get 30-40 deer for the meal. Yum!! Good stuff! Of course you have to joke about seeing "Ford" imprinted in the meat!!

I have had many close calls with deer, but never actually hit one. You ALWAYS have to be on your guard in our town. There are roads in your town that you are guaranteed to see many deeer at any time of day. My brother hit one 3 or 4 years back, killed the deer instantly and he had $4500 worth of damage to his truck.

 

Oops, I'm sorry, I misread the title of this thread. I thought it asked, "Ever hit a DEALER?" Boy, THAT thread could go on forever!!

 

One thing I like about my truck...by the time lift is finished a moose wouldn't be high enough to go through the window just be deflected under or to the side. So whenever I see a deer I'm gonna be droppin a gear and tryin to get me some food b/c I know deer vs. 1/4" thick bullbar tends to lean in the pushbars favor.

 

I've only hit one deer in my 41 years of driving, however I hit a coyote at 70 MPH in southern Michigan last year. The critter ran under a moving 18 wheeler on my right and there was another 18 wheeler on my left all of us running about 70. I had no where to go but straight and the coyote was hit square by my right front corner and right side tires. I was driving my Olds Intrigue. Hit so hard that it tore off the entire fog light lens and frame and created spider cracks in the bumper paint. There was actually hair embedded in the cracks! Oh. The coyote never moved after the initial contact!

 

i wouldn't believe that any state is going to protect drivers by building 100's of miles of fence.Even 5 wire barbed fence can be easily jumped over by deer so the state would have to come up with a hell of a fence and that would mean a LOTS! of money and sometimes it just happens.I prefer my truck with a heavy grill.One night I was going to a late night party and a sow and 4 piglets crossed the road and so I never cared to slow down and just plowed over those dirty hogs.I may be cruel but they ruin crops.

 

Came close several times...

A few years ago my friend (driving an MGB/GT) and I were coming back from a river trip. I was ahead of him by just a few minutes. I stopped a bit when I didn't see his headlights, and soon turned around to see if he had trouble. I found him about 5 miles back standing by the side of his car. His white car was covered with cow poop from hood to roof to rear. Seems like he hit a cow, but the cow was nowhere to be found. Must have clipped its legs just right so it did not come through the windshield.

 

My oldest son got one with his 69 F100 just after putting it on the road..radiator, alum grille, fan shroud, and hood. The venison didn't taste that good (about $140 a pound). Then he got one with his 91 Merc, , two weeks after the fix he got another with same car. Deer are "wards of the state" but the state won't pay for damages. The ins co does and we all know who pays eventually. My nephew lost his ins after hitting 8 deer in one year.

 

deer among other wildlife can only be controled through hunting. Deer populations are at an all time high over most of North America. Deer hunting generates millions of dollars and provides a large number of jobs.

Then along comes some tree hugging idiot that claim deer lives are as important as children.

Now our human population grows and we build in rural areas, dozing down deep woods and create more edge. Deer being creatures of the EDGE forest now having great expensive shrubs and other young forest plantings. NO HUNTING PRESSURE and bammmmmmm you hit one with your car and want the state to pay for it??????

We have idiot anti-hunter who is feeding the deer corn close to a road, many times in violation of state laws.

Many deer auto accidents can be avoided, by driving sensibly, slowing done and realizing that deer are HERD ANIMALS and are never totally alone, you just did not see the others!!!!!

Then come mating season, deer are moving more, people are in the woods bothering them causing them to move even more.

How do we go about making the state pay for deer/auto collisions? We dont because we cannot keep asking our goverment to accept a inherant road hazard. When will we accept that things are our responsability?

Hum, trees are owned by the state in most places, high water can washout and buckle roads, but is it the states fault because you are an idiot and cross a low water bridge and your car is washed down?

Is it the states fault because you just tore the front end out of your car or truck, you knew to slow down and drive or were you just to stupid?

Did you think that big pothole was only a small shallow one and you hit it wide open?

There is a known hazard level with anything we do, we have to accept its our problem and accept the blame.

"I was driving striaght down the road and the road turned." quoted from police reports. "The tree jumped out in front of me." "That pothole caused me to jerk the steering wheel and run off the road."

Since we have to blame someone for our mistake, maybe the God fearing people can say "It's all God fault!" Atheist can blame the state. Those who neither believe nor disbelieve. Can blame it on the state and hunters for not shooting enough. Who is the antihunter going to blame thier deer/auto wreck on.

As for the taste of venison, we know how to prepare it for the table and its fine eating. pretty much chemical and hormone free. If the deer is cut cross the grain of the meat in thin 3/8 inch slices and not over cooked you can cut with a fork. Its fat free!!! Yes it has the WILD TASTE its not pork, its not beef and sure ain't chicken. Even wild pork has a different taste, even a wild turkey (bird not booze) has a different taste. Its a taste of what our ancestors ate while building our country.

You can wash most of the blood clots from the meat, if the temp outside is under 42F degrees you can hang it for 5 days to , this is suppose to make it more tender, it can be cut into steaks, just cut the muscles across the grain.
Hams can be roasted just like a beef roast, back straps, neck can be cut into butterfly steaks, shoulders and other tuffer cuts can be cut into chunks for stews or ground for chili.

If you dont want the mess, most Sheriffs Dept. have a call list of people willing to take the roadkill.

JohnMasterChef@roadkillcafe.com

 

1. Those deer warning devices have been tested and found not to work in a lot of cases, and when they do work, they have no effect on deer. Waste of money.

2. In MO, you can usually keep the meat, but you have to first contact the local law dude (usually the sheriff - but if you call the wrong one, they will let you know). Ask them if you can have it, and in most cases they'll say yes - sometimes over the phone, if they know you. It's important to field dress the critter as soon as possible (just as in hunting), and when you skin it out, remove all obvious damaged areas. Sometimes they'll give it to a nursing home or some such, but if they're not equipped to handle it, it will cost them $120 - $150 for processing, which means that a lot of places just cannot afford "free meat".

 

Oh yes. Twice. Caused some ugly damage, giving it the beater look. I am so thankful it wasn't my Ford truck.

Truly, I am grateful it was the old chevy.

 

I I agree with that thought!

 

I had a herd of deer decide to cross I80 around 4 am. took out about 15 deer and a big orange semi I had venison and fiberglass EVERYWHERE!!! I was about 75k lbs traveling @63 mph (sorta tells ya who I was driving for ) when thes forest rats decided to make an apperance

Another time I was pulling doubles (differant co.) goin down a county road around 60 mph (around 1 am) had 4 jump into my path. Got 2 of them and took out the left side of the front clip.

Had a forest rat comite suicide. Pullin doubles she decided to cross the road and thought she could jump between the trailors when I stopped it took me about 2 hours to pull the all the carcass out so I could fix the airlines she destroyed

Here in Iowa you can keep the meat if you want it.
Other than the normal road hazzards like dogs,cats,deer,ground hogs, pheasants,foxes,coyotes.. the strangest thing I have hit is a Hawk carrying a rabbit

 

One in an our Expedition ( 12 point buck with 24 inch spread, didn't even get the deer, someone else got it), one in our '94 F-150, didn't get it either, one in our '87 F-150, didn't get it either

 

My cousin hit a bear in Penn. He was deadheadin back to Arkansas, he and his buddy stopped looked at the bear, not finding any damage to the bear they decided I might want the skin. Me being a taxidermist, they did bring it back in the reafer box.

Next day in the trailer yard in town here, they backed the pickup up opened the trailer doors and the bear ran over both of them, everyone scrambled around the yard as the bear came through thier area. Bear was last seen crossing the hwy bypass up over the hill and was gone.

I hit a smallish bobcat out in Kansas, stopped picked it, figured yep it was dead and as another car passed the cat came to. I would throw it and it would manage hang on by a claw after several attempts the cat finally let me go. The one time I did not have a first aid kit in my Chevy Burb. I drove into Abilene KS and bought peroxide and paper towel at the Alco store.

That was back in 1997 and I still have about tones of tiny scars to remind me, kill the damn thing!!!
Moral of the story, never trust fresh roadkill.

 

Never personally suffered damage to a vehicle from a collision with an animal, but had a couple strange ones. The first, I was in an '87 Merc Lynx, pulling out of work at night onto the road. Saw a shadow in the middle of the road, maybe a plastic bag or something, so I straddled it with my tires. THUMP!! That was no plastic bag. Turns out that when you hit an opposum with a low-slung car like that it's very bloody. The stain was there for at least a couple years, too.

I also had a very close call with a deer--closer than I originally thought. I was cruising down the highway doing about 60 at dusk. Saw a deer jump out RIGHT in front of me. I managed to cram the brakes without locking up, and it looked like I missed him by about a yard. Whew....drive on. About a week later, a friend was over and we were talking in front of my truck, and he looks close at the blue oval in the grille and pulls out several long, coarse, light-brown hairs... I must have just clipped his tail or something, but I never felt an impact or discovered any damage.

Jason