Deer hit my truck

I have to drive through a some what rural area in Louisiana to get to my office. This morning as I am driving to work around 6:15 am, I came around a curve going around 45 mph when I see a deer suddenly appear at the edge of the road. I jerked the steering wheel to swerve to my left when I head a very loud bang on the passenger side of the truck. It was very loud so I knew it did some damage. There was no place to pull over and being a dark rural road, I did not want to just stop in the road and get hit by a car too. I drove a couple more miles to my office and this is the damage I found. So the truck will being heading to a body shop soon to be repaired. I don't know if it killed the deer or not.

 

Ooof. A bedside, 2 doors, mirror, misc stuff, and paint/blend. That's an expensive deer!

 

There's nothing more dangerous when encountering an animal in the road than swerving to avoid it.
Slow down, nail it if necessary and let your insurance company handle the outcome.

 

I know, but swerving was just an automatic reaction. And I did not swerve much because there was literally maybe a second from when the deer appeared to when it hit my truck.

 

Yep, not cheap. Luckily I have full coverage insurance with a $500 deductible. I have already filed the claim to get the things going.

 

100% correct. I handled a lot more claims where people were seriously hurt by swerving to miss an animal and hitting another car, a tree, a pole, rolling over, etc. than I have where people were seriously hurt when their vehicle hit an animal. Hit your brakes, honk the horn, etc. but don't swerve. Mother Nature will make more deer, or dogs, or ducks, or cats, or whatever animal it is you're trying to avoid.

As an aside (NOT directed at OP, who clearly hit a deer), there's a segment of liars out there who claim to have swerved to miss an animal when in fact they were just drunk or texting or whatever and hit another car, a tree, a pole, rolled over, etc. Usually it's a dog that they claim to have swerved to miss. Our running joke was that it was the same dog, just one dog running around causing all of these people to swerve. Those people lie about swerving to miss an animal because they think people will view them as a good person for doing so. Those of us who deal with this all the time know that they're lying.

 

Reaction is a situation like this is mostly (all?) subconscious. I ran over a young buck west of Cortez, CO a few years ago. My wife said I was as cool as a cucumber. I replied I'm just slow so it happened before I could react!

 

You are correct, the deer appeared so fast, it was more like I flinched than intentionally swerving. I literally had maybe 1 second to react because it walked out into the road so fast.

I went back outside just not looking for blood and I just found two hairs stuck in the trim.

 

Hard to tell the depth of the dents, but if it didn't actually break the paint you might be able to get away with PDR and a new mirror.

 

There are lots of little dents in the doors but a really big dent in the bed. It broke the paint on the bed.

 

Dang. Bed will need a repaint and blend at least then, but the doors could possibly be PDR.

 

smart, get it fixed correctly and use what you pay for.
So often, some come on here trying to get ideas of some home repair, that I doubt often comes out good.

 

You should have called the police for an incident report (I didn't either). Keep that deer hair in the truck so adjuster can see it really was a deer. Mine was taken care of by comprehensive, not collision so it was like $250. That looks like ~$10K (upstate NY price) guess and yes, the damage, even w/o police report did show up in CarFax.

Glad your OK. We have so many fatalities, rollovers, etc on the Taconic State Parkway from driver avoidance.

 

Bummer, glad you are ok!!

 

I am not a vehicle body repair guy so this is far far more than I could repair. The truck will need two new doors and a bed or a bed side. I don't know how the beds are assembled so I don't know if they can replace just the side of the bed. The damage done is not something that can be a diy home repair job.

 

make sure your insurance covers all specifies of Deers. My insurance will not cover anything if damage is caused by a Schomburgk's deer

 

Even without breaks in the paint, the damage to the doors is partially in an area with little to no access from the backside. Bed damage is beyond PDR.

 

No need for a police report for an animal loss. It doesn't hurt, but it's not necessary. That damage is telltale from a deer/similarly sized animal. Won't be an issue with the appraiser, even if there was no deer hair.

 

You didn't swerve. The deer ran into the side of your truck while you were travelling at or below the posted speed limit.

 

None of that matters with regard to his insurance claim.