I get small dear at my house at night, they come down from the graveyard and small hills in the middle of a city, like I’m less than a mile from the city centre & they were walking down from here to the city centre during lockdown.
Amazing… 
I’m sure I posted the photo in the Covid-19 thread.
Took 9 hour drive to lake Tahoe going the back way from CA and almost hit a deer that came out of nowhere. They’re majestic as fuck.
Also saw one in the woods as I pulled over on some random turnoff to piss. Literally scared the piss out of me
A few years back I used to live quite near my train station for work. One morning I was taking a short cut thru a graveyard just before sun up so it’s quite gloomy. About 100 yards away I start seeing this white elongated oval - about the size of a football - moving quite fast bobbing up and down and (figuratively) quite literally shit myself. It was the tail of a deer scarpering as I approached. Luckily there were no F150’s on hand to mow it down.
I’ve come relatively close to hitting deer a few times, but I see them very regularly. Their like squirrels or bird in south Jersey. Scariest near hit though was when I almost broadsided an adult Elk at 3am coming over a hill in foggy conditions near the Grand Canyon. It walked around d the side of my car and looking out the passenger window I was looking under its body. Insane.
What you are seeing is a powerful minority (that used to be a majority or at least a plurality) doing everything it can to prevent the loss of their power. It’s so far down the path that you can already factually describe it as the tyranny of a minority - and I think it should be relentlessly framed like that.
Closest call I’ve ever had with a deer was one that almost hit me on I-89. Deer runs across the southbound lanes and into the median. I slow way down and the damn thing nearly hits me on the drivers side before changing direction and running in front of me safely to the other side.
Its common to see them in my neighborhood early morning or late at night, haven’t had a close call in the neighborhood but had one when i was a teen where i had to slam on the brakes and luckily stopped in time as it crossed a road near my parents house. All suburban area but theres a state park nearby and a decent enough amount of woods i guess.
I know one person who became a paraplegic after hitting a deer and someone who died hitting a moose.
I almost hit a deer late at night in newport beach, orange county. No one believed me. The road was next to a nature reserve, but the deer must have somehow found its way down there from the hills.
Scared the crap out of me. If that was a regular thing I would have to look out for, lol fuck that. No thanks. I’ll live happily in my suburbs.
I’ve seen deer on an urban highway.
The guy I mentioned who became a paraplegic hit the deer on a main city highway, ironically called Deerfoot Trail!
I guess that’s not too surprising considering how badly we are encroaching into and destroying nature. Urban coyotes are very common around here now. They weren’t 10-20 years ago. You can see them on the street in the middle of the day sometimes.
Never hit a deer, but I did run over a deer that had already been hit nearly at speed on a freeway. We were lucky we didn’t do any damage.
Unrelated: I lived in DC for a long time and recall riding the bus one night from Cleveland Park to Mount Pleasant–the route crosses Rock Creek Park, which has plenty of deer and because it’s such a densely populated environment they’re pretty accustomed to people. Anyway, bus stops to let someone out and standing there at the bus stop, like it was waiting for the H4 or something, was this deer. Doors open, bus driver stares, deer stares … awkward.
Same is true in MN, even in the urban areas I see them all the time, usually on a golf course but occasionally one runs through my neighborhood. I’ve been driving in northern MN my entire life and never hit one which is pretty crazy, the amount of dead deer I’ve seen on the side of the road is defintely in the thousands
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Back in college I was coming back from like a 12 hour session at Turning Stone on the NY State Thruway at like 5 or 6am on a Sunday morning. Hardly a car on the road, I’ve got my seat reclined a notch or two to stretch out, and one hand on the wheel, arm fully extended.
I’m driving a red '96 Camaro Z28 with chrome Z06 wheels. Beautiful car.
A deer bounds out into the road out of nowhere and stops in front of me. I’m doing about 75mph and swerve. I know, I know, but I’m a 20 year old with a beautiful car. Also this thing might end up in my face given the shape of the hood of a 96 Camaro. But I didn’t really think of that, if I’m being honest, I thought “My carrrrrr!!!”
So I swerve hard, and next thing you know I’m going 70mph sideways down the New York State Thruway. The deer is unmoved, it’s just standing there as we come face to face for a second. Bambi was not Jordanesque.
I steer into the slide, and point the wheels down the middle of the two westbound lanes, slam the clutch, and hold on tight steering back and forth as I fishtail wildly a few times.
I get it under control, my heart is pounding, and I ease into the right lane and slow down to about 50mph.
I check the rearview and there’s an SUV behind me maybe 100 yards back. As it catches me and passes me, I look over and there are two kids in the back seat with their faces pressed against the window, mouths agape. I assume all they saw back there were my tail lights sliding all over the road.
But the deer lived, my beloved Camaro lived, and it was a good night.
About a year or two out of college, I borrowed my parents’ car for a road trip back to school (for a sportsgame event or something) in upstate NY.
About midway into the trip, while on a 4-lane interstate, going probably 70+, I totaled the car when I hit a deer, basically head-on. Two very fortunate aspects: 1) it was young, so not full size, and while it crumpled the hood a bit, it didn’t do worse and wasn’t high enough to come over the hood or into the windshield, and 2) it all happened so quickly, that I didn’t even have time to swerve, which probably would have made things significantly worse, for us, the passengers. I probably did have a split-second to slow the speed from 70+ (in a 65), which was also probably very fortunate.
This was in broad daylight, and I typically would have my eyes scanning for deer in certain sections of the trip. However, the surprise on this one was this guy jumped out from the center, grassy median, on my left, and not from the woods on the right. Never expected it coming from that direction, and barely saw it before impact.
Called the police to file a report so my parents would have it for insurance. I was a young, stupid kid obviously, so kudos to the cop for this exchange: “How fast would you say you were going?” “Oh, maybe 70-75”. “Sooooo…65?” “Yes, yes, 65.”
About 30 years ago I hit a deer that had been hit by another car. I didn’t understand how this deer was still upright when I hit it. I didn’t see it get hit by the other driver—it was late at night. I knew it was hit by another driver because when I called the authorities to report a dead deer on the side of the road they wanted to know if I was putting a claim on the deer—the other driver had already done this. I was fine with the other driver taking the deer.