Deer hit my truck

Nope, but they are in fact from the perpetrator. When I drove home yesterday I looked for the deer that collided with my truck. I was hoping it would be dead on the side of the road.

 

my sister hit a deer many many years ago... damaged her car... was told by her insurance to file a claim... at least she had a sense of humor...

name of party: deer (full name unknown)

address: (unknown, El Dorado forest)

driver's license number: no license

insurance policy: no insurance

collision: hit and run

injuries: unknown (other party left scene)

 

I got the repair estimate from the insurance company and their estimate is $5,300. I am trying to schedule an appointment with the body shop this week to get an estimate from them to get the repair started.

 

Well I was finally able to get my truck into the body shop to get repaired. The Tacoma bed side panels have been on nation wide backorder. The deer accident happened at the end of January and it has taken until the end of April to get the repairs started.

 

Did the deer's family have insurance?

 

Be glad the truck was drivable. There are many Broncos and other Fords/Chevys that are sitting at the dealership with nationwide backorders on parts that are undrivable and people are making payments without the ability to drive the vehicle. Insurance and warranty doesnt cover "forever" rentals either, its in your policy the amount of days covered. Hopefully repairs go smooth and fast and you get back in the truck sooner than later! Share the before and after side by sides when you get it back!

 

The dead was deceased after it collided with my truck so I could not find out.

 

Deer not a problem here. I love them.
A few years ago I watched a doe escort one of her fawns across a semi-busy, rural, 2 lane road near my property.
She waited with her fawn on the side of the road for the traffic to stop, then she escorted it across the road.
A short time later, she returned, across the road, to the woods and got her other hidden fawn and did the same
to get it across the road. The 2nd fawn quietly waited for her return.
They are full grown and back again this year (among others) mowing my ground cover. I did not have to use mower once last year.

BUT:
Driving back from Oregon coast (Tillamook) at night on a non-lit county hwy road at 50+ mph, I suddenly noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a massive form run in front of my truck (not the tacoma). I swerved and just missed it. It was not a deer but an elk. If I had hit it head on (a second or two difference in timing) I would have been badly injured or killed and the truck totaled. The elk would have limped off. I would estimate it weighed over 600lbs (they can go up to 800 I think). Fortunately, due to the swerve, there was no impact. Freaked me out how suddenly things can go from nice drive to just missed being killed.

Edit: sheesh - this was probably one of them. my weight estimate could be a bit low:
"The Roosevelt elk subspecies, found in the Pacific Northwest, are the largest elk with mature bulls weighing 700 to 1,200 pounds, and very rarely up to 1,300 pounds"

I also have progressive ins. Never had a claim with them but have read they can be a problem if you do.
I'm interested to know how it all goes. Good luck.

 

Some places allow you to call a ranger and after they make their report you can take the deer home and skin/gut/hang/cook/eat it...

https://wdfw.wa.gov/licenses/roadkill-salvage

 

Well, 3.5 months after the deer hit my truck, I finally got my truck back from the body shop. The body shop took 3 weeks to fix the truck, the rest of the time was to order parts. The bedside had to be replaced and it was on nationwide backorder. Both passenger side doors also had to be replaced, but those were in stock. I brought my truck to the dealership body shop and they did a great job.

Before


After

 

Great outcome!

 

This time of the year whitetails move close to roads, back yards and houses to avoid predators when giving birth.

 

Swerve if it’s a burro or elk, and just duck if it’s a moose. All three will kill you if they go over the hood and through the windshield.

 

Like most others here, I'm glad you are OK and your truck looks great like new. Kinda poopy that will be on a CarFax report, but that's to worry about much much later.

FWIW, here's something you all may find interesting.

I used to work for a Big Oil company in west Texas. We had a fleet of hundreds of F-150 and F-250 trucks. We had "animal strikes" - which is what we called them to differentiate from actual vehicle crashes - all the time. On infrequent occasion, like once or twice a year, one would be particularly troublesome because the driver would run off road or into the other lane of traffic swerving to avoid it. (We didn't care about damage to the trucks when it came to animal strikes - it was inevitable)

After some time, like years, some of our really savvy safety specialists did a study and some research and suggested to our leadership team that we should put brush guards (heavy duty bumpers) on all our new trucks going forward and modify our defensive driver training to include a short section on animal strikes. Which was quite simply "do not swerve - brake only". We had a few skeptics during annual refresher training who would say things like "I don't want to hurt an animal if I can" and that was OK. We would just emphasize the safest thing to do was simply brake.

Cannot prove to you any factual data because I no longer work in that region, but we were also convinced at that time the HD bumpers would more or less pay for themselves in terms of less body damage needing repair.

 

Very good advice from your former co.

Buddy in Alberta Canada had a very beefy ARB (kangaroo destroyer) guard/bumper on his Taco for deer (deer hit my rear door Frontier - yes, idiot ran into me perpendicular, in broad daylight, not a buck... and before that one about totaled my 4Runner - two lane road w/ traffic, at night, about 7 of them came charging out of steep ditch on side of road - nothing I could do but rapidly "brake" - about pushed the front end into my lap!). Anyway, his "thagomizer" took out 3 deer, separate events, at speed, w/ nary a scratch on his truck. He would add, the bumper was an MPG killer, but it did its thing.
We do not have enough wolves (literal and figurative) to kill this overpopulation. And young men now play video games instead of outdoors/hunting as God intended.

 

Glad it turned out ok! I hate hitting deer with vehicles. We have kamikaze deer were Im from

 

Glad you're fixed up now. Truck looks sharp.

 

I hit my deer in mid flite just he leapt over the guard rail, and I was just crossing a bridge. Hit him before he touched the ground. It was an awesome jump, but I wish he could have cleared my Tacoma too. Disabled my Taco and caused $7500 in damage. He got up and walked away to do it again to somebody else another day.

 

https://youtu.be/5ZgiPj-VJVQ?si=Q2rpTdz-BYbLKTeG