dD/dt

At least I give the car a lot of the credit. Picture this:

I was heading north on the Palisades Parkway this afternoon, just above Nyack. Beautiful day, clear, and unseasonably warm (45F; Californian comments not welcome). On the median, a couple hundred yards ahead, I spotted a deer. I braked hard. I hit a deer in my 330i last year, and understand that they are impulsive and use poor judgment in the presence of speeding cars.

In front of me, the driver of a Honda Pilot saw the deer just after I did. She hit the brakes, the deer leapt in front of her, and she made solid contact. The deer went skittering over into the right lane. It must have slid over a hundred yards. The Pilot's hood flipped up into the windshield. She lost control, and ran off the road to the left.

In the mirror, I caught a glimpse of a Camry coming up fast. The driver got enough control to run off the left side of the road and just miss hitting me from behind.

I had to tiptoe across all the Pilot parts on the road, but otherwise rolled through while the car in front and the car behind me ran off the road.

Here's my evaluation of everyone's performance (with + or -):

Me
+seeing deer
+not tailgating

Porsche 997
+great brakes
+predictable handling

Deer
-poor situational awareness
-impulsive decision to run into traffic

Girl driving Pilot
-slow reaction to deer
+hit deer like she meant it

Honda Pilot
-weak hood latch
-too many parts fall off when hit with deer

Driver behind me
-slow reaction
+ran off road to avoid accident

P.S.
As some know, I am a doctor. After the incident, I pulled off the road and made sure everyone was OK. They were.

vexed

Glad to hear no one was hurt and you avoided damage to the car.

Betternotbigger

A deer jumped out and stopped in front of me a fortnight ago when I was driving my family across a frozen north of Scotland in our Merc B class. The road was covered in snow, the outside temp was -10 and I was doing about 40-50mph.

There was insufficient stopping distance so it was a choice of ploughing straight on while applying as much brake pressure as possible without going into a skid, or swerving out of the way and probably into a frozen ditch a hundred miles from the nearest city.

The deer just stared at us as we rammed her at about 10 mph, bounced off and trotted away. All we suffered was a shattered grille trim. Not long ago, a friend's wife hit one a glancing blow at 20mph and wrote her car off. Thank God we hit her square on. I'll definitely be more deer-aware from now on.

ross74

From your evaluation seems like the deer is the weakest link
anyway well done you and car

Alstoy

Glad to hear all's well. I had a similar experience a few years ago. But, instead of a deer it was a huge truck that decided to turn right in-front of me. My car played a big role in saving my life.

Cheers

John NY-Naples

They are the dumbest animals. They are all over the place in Westchester. Two years ago, I was driving my BMW when a deer came out of nowhere and hit me. I was traveling around 45 mph when the deer came out of nowhere, crossed the road and rammed into the front quarter panel on the driver side. It bounced off and ran off.

rodsky

Glad to hear everyone is safe and sound. I feel so much safer in my 997 than in my wife's SUV. Everyone thinks that SUV's are "safer" as they are big but I find that in a 997, I can brake so much better, I can change direction really quickly and with stability and overall its just easier to get away from trouble.

buckwheat987

Maybe deer act different at night or it depends on their place of habitat.

I see alot of deer hanging out by the side of the nj parkway at night. If everyone braked hard after seeing one there would be alot of accidents.

With all the speeding cars by I have never seen one jump into the highway.

I would assume your deer was moving...and not just standing there. and thats why your braked hard.

Good situational awareness. Time for some DE's.

waiting for PDK

Growing up in deer country I was taught not to swerve out of your lane to avoid hitting any animals. Get out of your lane and you're very likely to hit something and the animal is very likely to have moved out of your lane anyway (possibly into wherever you swerved intending to miss it). Nice to hear everybody's okay.

OCBen

Edgy01

Glad to hear all the people escaped injury. When Porsche set out to build these cars they claimed that they wanted to build something that would avoid accidents--and they have. I suggest many Porsche owners over the years have been able to avoid accidents and possibly death because of the handling capabilities of these cars.

I finally had a close deer encounter several years ago in South Dakota. I was aware that it was deer country and was taking it very slow. One came bounding out from the right (off a hill) and hit the road about the same time she saw me. Her reaction was typical--with slippery hooves on asphalt, they are not capable of maneuvering effectively. We missed each other, but I learned a great lesson. Deer have absolutely no foot control on asphalt. It's like being on ice for us.

dD/dt

The deer was clearly moving toward the roadway, which is why I braked hard. I've not only hit a deer in my BMW (at 75 mph, $8k in damage) but nearly rear-ended a woman who made a panic stop on a country road because there were a few deer, grazing about 10 yards off the road. They didn't even look up.

Aside from their usefulness as hunting targets, deer in this part of the country are a scourge. They taste good as sausage and in stews, but their numbers here endanger lives, and they eat the flowers in my back yard, which I dislike.

Anyway, on topic, this car is great. What it lacks in bulk (even though it weighs 60% of my Land Cruiser -- yikes) it more than makes up for in agility. It's not bulletproof; but an attentive driver, at a reasonable speed, can avoid almost all evil.

And the deer was the weakest link. Goodbye.

Rocci

On a recent drive back from Steamboat Springs almost had a run in with a moose. Had my girlfriend not spotted the moose on the side of the road when she did, we would have hit it. Fortunately, the roads were not icy and the ABS on the 4 Runner did their job beautifully. After the adrenaline rush subsided, I took it easy until we were out of moose country. I am now a little more aware of the critters than I was before the near incident, after all there was a moose crossing sign just up the road.

dD/dt - sounds like your car and you did it right. Can't say the same for the others.

utkinpol

Peoples` lives cost less than lives of our precious deers so people will still be prohibited from hunting those stupid things down in suburban areas and people will still be hurt on roads. I did hit deers 2 times when I lived in mid-west and that second time totaled my car. So, I would rather see any damn environmentalist smashed to bloody pulp in the middle of the road than that stupid animal which place is in a deep forest and not in a suburban area. Not to mention ticks that spread lime decease everywhere so you are constantly afraid of your children jumping into any nearby bushes.

utkinpol

yes, direct impact is the best but both times i did hit a deer stupid thing was staying paralyzed and looked straight at me. bad luck. But sometimes they do run away, that is right. And still it is better to hit a deer at 50mph than a tree or a light post not to mention other cars around and insurance complications.