Deer and other animals continuously ramming my car
 

Years ago I drove a million miles all after 10pm no accidents ever.

Now even when my car is stopped I have wildlife ramming my car continuously.

Latest was punting a bear like a football that jumped in front of my car.

I remember some folks with old suburbans that had a large cow catcher that were never concerned about deer collisions and it’s appearing that’s what I need to do.

Oddly enough when I had an old beater 6.2 diesel suburban and a cow catcher I never had to test it.

Considering it appears impossible to leave my driveway without animal contact what type of vehicle and cow catcher should I get so I’m not wrecked out every day of the week.

I've had the good fortune to have never hit anything bigger than a raccoon. Mostly that's because you rarely see anything big other than deer here in the rainy Cascade Valley. The other thing is that I have high situational awareness, constantly scanning both near and far due to having developed those habits riding a motorcycle.

I wonder what capabilities vehicles have avoiding wildlife? A recent demonstration of Tesla's autonomous driving showed the vehicle hesitating to make a left turn, and then a person appeared crossing the road out of nowhere. From the drivers perspective, the person was not likely to be noticed, but the Tesla identified the pedestrian and the intended path of travel despite becoming completely obscured by a parked car.
http://"https://www.youtube.com/watc...Sww&start=759"

I don't remember how to post as a link instead of embedded, but the relevant part is at 12:40

For every hit I’ve avoided 20, it was a dark lightless night

From 4-9am&pm everyday there are deer everywhere even on interstate.

In the last 4 years I see deer getting ground up in ways I’ve never seen in my entire life.

2 of them ran into the wheel wells of a semi at 9am.

It’s like the things have gone beserk doing things I’ve never seen. I had one ram my stationary car hard enough to blow the headlight and fender.

I drive out of my way because certain roads are impassable even at noon with the blasted things herded on the road moving erratically

I’ve come to the conclusion situational awareness does nothing, I handled it fine driving most of the million miles in the UP on narrow road 20+ years, the things I’ve always done no longer work

Maybe they should put those deer crossing signs in areas more suitable for crossing instead of in the interstate.

I went to Hawaii (The Big Island) a couple years ago and rented a minivan for my family and parents. Coming back from the Hilo side to Kona at night, there was a stretch of road absolutely smattered with the blood stains of wild boar. I had multiple instances of full braking, or edge of limit steering avoiding the dumb creatures. That was with a full minivan. Absolute white knuckle driving. Of course, I'd just hit one rather than exceed the handling capabilities of the vehicle, but fortunately I didn't have to.

I'm surprised that wasn't one of the "no-go zones" rental companies get you to agree to considering that is by far the most dangerous area I've ever driving on a Hawaiian island. They exclude easy to drive areas like Haleakalā, or the back way to Hana, but hundreds of wild boar on a highway is fine.

likethis://youtu.be/wWt2IPWwSww?t=760

I drove through Eastern Oregon in the middle of the night on the way to Bonneville. There were three sizes, the little ones (Kangaroo Rats?) went 'tick', the middle sized ones went 'tock' and the big ones went 'thump'.

I swerved once to miss a whole family of chipmunks, and they all swerved in the same direction and I wiped out the whole lineage, and felt pretty bad about it, despite having a low opinion of tree rats.

Rmay - Just out of curiosity, is it just you, or do other drivers also notice an increase in car-wildlife interactions?
Unless you have a comicbook level animal magnetism, then I doubt they would all be selectively running only towards you, so possibly something changed in the local eco life recently. You might find media coverage about it, or if not, contact local media and tell them, maybe it will interest them.

Insurance has noted a continued elevated level of car animal contacts since the start of the pandemic .

It went down slightly recently but is still at a significantly higher level than it ever was before.

Even the southern part of the state which historically has basically had minimal issues with this.

Humans killed off their natural predators
Fewer human hunters.
Urban sprawl
Climate change

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-en...g-declines-are

And the @!&£©%% neighbors feeding them because "They are sooo cute"