What to do after you hit a deer on the way to work......

[fpgt72]

You screw around in the reloading room.

At roughly 4am, I hit a deer on the way to work, actually two deer as she was pregnant. What a deer is doing pregnant this time of year, must have been a slut. So they haul my poor truck to get fixed. So I go back home and load some 3006. So I did that and decompressed a bit.

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After a dozen calls to ins, and body shops to see how long it is going to take to get my car back I start to try to figure out what am I going to drive in the short term. Well I have a choice between these two running "cars"

This one is going to be just a tad chilly with temps at 40F, and no windshield.

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So this 55 yr old girl.
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An 850 Fiat spider, and as I enjoy little cars to play in, driving one to work daily is not going to be fun. Hopefully I can get an estimate on the timeline on my car.

I also have an '86 Fiero, but it has not moved in several years, I was going to sell it with the stupid car prices this year, but my health just sidelined that.

So riding to work in this old girl, in the dark, with 1960's headlights.....lets just say tech has come a long way.

 

[fpgt72]

Well hell not sure what happened to the pics....here they are.

 

[Maggot]

I had one of those Fiats. We called it the 'Fiasco'. Bought it worn out, replaced EVERYTHING on it, then totaled it. Insurance co. called it 'contributary negligence and refused to pay.

100% loss on a 100% POS. That sumbitch had more wires and hoses than Carter has liver pills.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Drive the Triumph. You'll get even more time off work.

 

[fpgt72]

Drive the Triumph. You'll get even more time off work.

It is going to be a little more work to get going.....

My issue is all these old cars sat for roughly a decade while I went in for back surgery after back surgery. I am just not starting to feel like doing something. The sand rail and fiat are the "most easy" to get road worthy, so I did those first.

The Fiats name is FiFi. I actually have two of them. Driving a sub 1L car is a different experience. New it had like 38 hp, I am sure a few ponies have escaped in that time, so likely less HP then my mower.

 

[RONIN45230]

“What to do after you hit a deer on the way to work......”​

Hopefully you took the meat home….. the rest, such is life.

 

[MtnCreek]

You had to have your truck towed after hitting a deer?

 

[Jigstick]

Must of been a dodge truck

 

[W54/XM-388]

It is going to be a little more work to get going.....

My issue is all these old cars sat for roughly a decade while I went in for back surgery after back surgery. I am just not starting to feel like doing something. The sand rail and fiat are the "most easy" to get road worthy, so I did those first.

The Fiats name is FiFi. I actually have two of them. Driving a sub 1L car is a different experience. New it had like 38 hp, I am sure a few ponies have escaped in that time, so likely less HP then my mower.

Make sure you put fresh tires on those cars before hitting the road, no matter how good you think they look.

 

[fpgt72]

Make sure you put fresh tires on those cars before hitting the road, no matter how good you think they look.

Yea they have a born on date, been doing the car thing for half a century, but thanks for the reminder.

 

[fpgt72]

You had to have your truck towed after hitting a deer?

It was driveable, and the air bags did not deploy so I might be good there. The seat belts did tighten, and loosen again, so I think they are ok. One "crash sensor" is gone, it knew to call 911 and I stopped that. The inner wheel arch got pushed into the wheel and that was not a real big thing, and there was no fluid leaking.

The thing that put a hard stop on me was right after the crash it said air bag malfunction. I know that if the wind blows right the air bags might go off, and this is what I was worried about, so I had it towed.

 

[fpgt72]

Must of been a dodge truck

God no, I like my vehicles to last.

However it is the 6.5creed of the truck world........a Honda Ridgeline. And I really do like that thing, it is perfect for what I need.

I have a big ole F150 for the farm truck, remember the big old beasts with the 8' bed and the two tanks, 5 speed manual with the good ole straight 6, good truck not good on gas.

This thing I can toss a freezer in the back of (did last week) and still get 28mpg, and a new compressor for my shop. I am one of those goofs that records the mileage every fill up. I went x miles, filled with y fuel, for z mileage.....average 27.7mpg. I can live with that.

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

So, the foil side of radiant barrier goes inside?
guess I've been doing it wrong.
Whats the red car?

 

[Mike Casselton]

It is going to be a little more work to get going.....

My issue is all these old cars sat for roughly a decade while I went in for back surgery after back surgery. I am just not starting to feel like doing something. The sand rail and fiat are the "most easy" to get road worthy, so I did those first.

The Fiats name is FiFi. I actually have two of them. Driving a sub 1L car is a different experience. New it had like 38 hp, I am sure a few ponies have escaped in that time, so likely less HP then my mower.

I had a 72 Midget. I feel your horsepower pain. 1200CCs of raw beast.

Neighbor across the street had a Sprite with the 850 or 950 in it.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Must of been a dodge truck

If it was a Dodge, he would have missed it.
A Ram can't miss

 

[W54/XM-388]

I used to drive a manual transmission Honda CRX HF for many years.
You really had to work the gears to get up any speed at all.

 

[Maggot]

It was driveable, and the air bags did not deploy so I might be good there. The seat belts did tighten, and loosen again, so I think they are ok. One "crash sensor" is gone, it knew to call 911 and I stopped that. The inner wheel arch got pushed into the wheel and that was not a real big thing, and there was no fluid leaking.

The thing that put a hard stop on me was right after the crash it said air bag malfunction. I know that if the wind blows right the air bags might go off, and this is what I was worried about, so I had it towed.

Must have been a Ford

I hit a big buck with my little (pre Tacoma) Toyota. Broke the grill and dented a fender a bit. .Drove it to Costa Rica right after that.

 

[Maggot]

I had a 72 Midget. I feel your horsepower pain. 1200CCs of raw beast.

Neighbor across the street had a Sprite with the 850 or 950 in it.

Ive been on motorcycles with more power than that.

 

[n2ishun]

I would drive that Fiat with pride.
Very few Americans know that Fiat has built a shit ton of racing cars.....yes, even using that 850 chassis as a start.
Abarth was one of the major tweakers of Fiats.
Scroll thru here and you might even see one

Fiat-Abarth 750 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A simple Weber carb and deleting a few things on that motor will make it come alive, seriously.

BTW, nice Rotary lift.

OBTW, I have built quite a few Fiats to full race level....usually for enduro/desert/rally type races.
They can do very well being small and light.

For those that do not know.
Fucked In Any Terrain
Failure In Automotive Technology
And the old reliable
Fix It Again Tony

 

[Dead Eye Dick]

Speaking of Dodge trucks. During Christmas time, 2004, our son was about to graduate from college. It dawned on Brenda and I that he had never seen the mountains (or much of any place else that did not have a ski lake, him being a nationally ranked skier and that’s were our vacations/weekends/trips of any kind were to)

So, Well in advance of the Christmas season, we made arrangements, got reservations and headed off to Salida, Colorado, to see the mountains and for him to learn to Snow Ski. I learned when stationed at Ft. Carson after returning from Vietnam. A major cold front hit the nation while we were skiing and it was great, snow everywhere, a real Christmas wonderland, for a 22 year old who rarely if ever saw snow and never at Christmastime. Well we wanted to get home for Christmas Day. So early on Christmas Eve, we head out in temps that were in the low teens. Low NEGATIVE TEENS. (As in -17 F)

But there was another reason to head home. A couple days before, Brenda hit a deer with her Miata. Killed the deer, but did Zero damage to the Miata, go figure. It was wet, so with the rounded front end, the deer slid over but the impact took out the deers legs who struggled off to die.

We travel almost 24 hours, a thousand miles, get within 50 miles of home, its 2:00 AM, Christmas morning and I see a deer. I slow down, forget it, a second ran in front and wham. $2800.00 damage to the dodge truck, $0.00 damage to the Miata Doing the same thing, a couple days earlier

 

[Longrangeprecision762]

I know what I'd be doing

 

[HeavyAssault]

So how much of that -06 do you need to sell to cover your deductible??

 

[Shoots 700's]

Id opt for a rental that insurance should pay for

 

[Snipe260]

I had a 72 Midget. I feel your horsepower pain. 1200CCs of raw beast.

Neighbor across the street had a Sprite with the 850 or 950 in it.

Didn’t know Frank was 72

 

[Snipe260]

So I had a Deersniper day! Hit wrought iron fence with boat trailer. Fucked up both. Got in from fishing and fuckin truck died. 2nd alternater bad in 2 months. But otherwise, been a stellar day

 

[Baron23]

Hope you got a head shot on her and spared the meat. haha

Sorry about your truck...PIA all the way around. But, as you said...you been doing the car thing for a long time so you know the pain of this will fade into the past quickly and life will go on.

Best of luck to you (and really....did you take the doe home or....how did you know she was preggers?)

 

[Mike Casselton]

Didn’t know Frank was 72

He's 72 CM.

 

[Makinchips208]

At a minimum cut the back strap off. That’s always good on roadkill. The rest may not be.

 

[Aftermath]

I have THESE bumpers on my truck. About a dozen deer, mostly whitetails but a few muley's, I only stop to make sure they didn't take out a brake line or poke a hole in the oil pan or something. I do try to slow down but don't usually use the brakes, especially if there is a chance of ice on the road. Highly recommend.

 

[fpgt72]

So, the foil side of radiant barrier goes inside?
guess I've been doing it wrong.
Whats the red car?

I am going to reply to these one at a time, I like doing it better this way over the multi quote thing.

The red car at the front of the garage is a '67 Triumph GT6.

Think basically a triumph spitfire with a hard top. Ever see a hard top E-type jag, well get one of those wet and toss in the dryer and you get a GT6.

Big heavy 6 cyl. Really a very pretty car. That one was a frame off, and I told myself years ago I would not do another to that extent, then I got bored and was in the process of doing the same thing to a 63 Bug when my back went south.

 

[fpgt72]

I used to drive a manual transmission Honda CRX HF for many years.
You really had to work the gears to get up any speed at all.

The HF was a very unique car. Everyone thinks of the CRX of old as a little hot rod, they forget about the HF. I want to say it stood for High Fuel and got really insane gas mileage back in the day.

 

[fpgt72]

Ive been on motorcycles with more power than that.

The Africa Twin that you can sorta make out has roughly 3x the horse power as the little car.

As I said I have two of them, the green one you see in the photo, as well as a white one that has a fresh motor waiting to go back in. They really are cool little cars.

I have tossed around the idea of doing the white car (her name is Sophie) in motorcycle power like the guy did with the Honda 600, but I don't want to cut it up, just too nice of a car for that. Turned down buyers that want it to do just that to it. Can't do it, the car is just too nice to cut up.

 

[fpgt72]

I would drive that Fiat with pride.
Very few Americans know that Fiat has built a shit ton of racing cars.....yes, even using that 850 chassis as a start.
Abarth was one of the major tweakers of Fiats.
Scroll thru here and you might even see one

Fiat-Abarth 750 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A simple Weber carb and deleting a few things on that motor will make it come alive, seriously.

BTW, nice Rotary lift.

OBTW, I have built quite a few Fiats to full race level....usually for enduro/desert/rally type races.
They can do very well being small and light.

For those that do not know.
Fucked In Any Terrain
Failure In Automotive Technology
And the old reliable
Fix It Again Tony

In another life I did SCCA road racing, this is where the name comes from FPGT72, I raced F-Production in an opel GT, my number 72, so FPGT72. So yea I am one of those fools that took an obscure car bought tons of parts from europe and went road racing in the US with the little thing, such a blast.

I tried to race again after the first surgery and it took two guys to get me back out of the car, yea I am done with that, but I can't sell my old race car, still have it in the trailer.

Really racing "not real popular" cars in the US takes a special kind of idiot....err love for the car. You are going to go much faster for much less money in a common US car. I have seen a few X1/9's running, and I think a 124 from back when I was racing (I quit around 2003) but not many of them. I raced in the Mid-Am division.

 

[fpgt72]

Hope you got a head shot on her and spared the meat. haha

Sorry about your truck...PIA all the way around. But, as you said...you been doing the car thing for a long time so you know the pain of this will fade into the past quickly and life will go on.

Best of luck to you (and really....did you take the doe home or....how did you know she was preggers?)

We found her in the ditch on the other side of the road, she was quite poochy in the belly, and you could tell she was ready to start making milk. It really is the wrong time for her to be that far along, but everyone thought she had about a month to go if that. That alone was one of the really odd things. I figure I did the thing favors, and not having them starve to death this winter, today it is in the 30's and only going to get more cold, no way a fawn could live through the winter.

 

[fpgt72]

No I did not take her home. Never liked doing that, I knocked the shit out of her, I know it is all over the side of the truck. I bet I busted everything in her right side. I think she was a bit too tore up for that....not worth the trouble.

 

[zeroz]

Backstraps are literally a 5 min "trouble".

 

[fpgt72]

Backstraps are literally a 5 min "trouble".

Half the animal was toast, I have not eaten meat that has had that kind of trama to it, but think the level of bruising that had to be going on, plus if any of her organs busted up on the impact, for me not worth the trouble.

As we are here, anyone eat meat that has been hit by a car, what does that do to the meat? Can you salvage (in my case) that half the animal where she was hit? I am thinking of an animal that had not so good of a shot on it, and its "innerds" got destroyed. That is not something I am keen on doing again, or even helping with again.

 

[W54/XM-388]

The HF was a very unique car. Everyone thinks of the CRX of old as a little hot rod, they forget about the HF. I want to say it stood for High Fuel and got really insane gas mileage back in the day.

It got an honest 50mpg and that was also back in the day of $0.70 and $0.80 gasoline so fuel costs were almost an afterthought.
It went to about 300k despite being crashed into a couple times.

 

[2aBaC̶a̶]

thought this thread was going to be about making jerky.

 

[LawnMM]

feel the recoil?

 

[Flint62a1]

I would have at least taken the backstraps.
Or maybe a get well balloon ?

 

[fpgt72]

It got an honest 50mpg and that was also back in the day of $0.70 and $0.80 gasoline so fuel costs were almost an afterthought.
It went to about 300k despite being crashed into a couple times.

I don't want to turn this thread into a mileage thread.....but they could do it then, why the hell not now. Don't bother answering I know why.

Really fantastic well built little cars, shame we don't see real forward thinking on this anymore.

 

[W54/XM-388]

Really fantastic well built little cars, shame we don't see real forward thinking on this anymore.

Funny enough a decade or so one of my good friends knew the head of Honda in NA through work contacts.
As the story was told to me, friend started to asks that question and the guy said that was like the number 1 question he kept getting asked.
The short answer was that it was impossible to build that car again or anything much like it because of all the laws and regulations on what new vehicles must have and be built to. In addition to that most folks with actual new vehicle purchasing power wanted bigger vehicles. Bigger sold, smaller did not.
As the average American got fatter and less active, they couldn't fit in tiny little cars anymore.

If you go back and look at say 1987 to 1990 range Japanese vehicles, such as:

Corolla
Camry
Civic
Accord
Toyota 3rd and 4th gen pickup trucks

They were all tiny as compared to today's vehicles.

Then you add in all the crazy emissions regulations
Then you add in all the safety equipment regulations and crash regulations.
Then you add in all the "comfort features" than everybody demands today
Then you make the vehicles bigger to accommodate all the wide load rear ends of the population.

Next thing you know your vehicle is more than double the weight and your engine has all kinds of handicaps.

Honda did have a great fuel economy vehicle later on with the original insight that was out before the Prius and got better than 50mpg. (hypermilers were knocking on 70mpg driving like assholes of course).
But that one was discontinued and they didn't bring it back until much later and the replacement didn't get the amazing fuel economy of the original

Now Honda did actually eventually make another 50mpg vehicle (a few of them) once they got their hybrid stuff worked out, but in their usual stupid way they pretty much never advertised them.
The 2017 Honda Accord hybrid would get 50mpg if you drove it carefully at reasonable highway / surface street speeds (I had one) Except buyers for the most part never knew it existed.

The Insight and Clarity versions also got great gas mileage but were the hated neglected stepchildren the company didn't want to push.

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

Half the animal was toast, I have not eaten meat that has had that kind of trama to it, but think the level of bruising that had to be going on, plus if any of her organs busted up on the impact, for me not worth the trouble.

As we are here, anyone eat meat that has been hit by a car, what does that do to the meat? Can you salvage (in my case) that half the animal where she was hit? I am thinking of an animal that had not so good of a shot on it, and its "innerds" got destroyed. That is not something I am keen on doing again, or even helping with again.

I have processed a road kill. Guy was driving an old ranchero, deer went over the top and landed in the bed. He brought it to the camp still alive and we went to work. It was pretty bruised up so we salvaged what we could and cut it up for sausage.

 

[fpgt72]

I have processed a road kill. Guy was driving an old ranchero, deer went over the top and landed in the bed. He brought it to the camp still alive and we went to work. It was pretty bruised up so we salvaged what we could and cut it up for sausage.

So part of it was just not good for much due to the impact?

Sorry for being thick, but I have only ever bow hunted and there is very little real "damage" for lack of a better word.

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

So part of it was just not good for much due to the impact?

Sorry for being thick, but I have only ever bow hunted and there is very little real "damage" for lack of a better word.

Blood collects in the bruises so is unusable

 

[Bullfroggy]

My drive to work goes through a state preserve, and deer are constantly crossing and often hit. If I notice a fresh one, I'll investigate. It doesn't take much to quickly peel back the skin on a few key areas, and I've ended up with some good venison that way. I cut out the good and don't mess with the bruised. I also don't open up the gut cavity on a roadkill deer. I suppose any bruised meat could be good for dog food, if you were inclined to mess with it.

 

[Sniperwannabee]

I used to drive a manual transmission Honda CRX HF for many years.
You really had to work the gears to get up any speed at all.

Hah I got one with 408k on it ,awesome on gas, it helped me through the Obama gas prices and now Biden…

 

[zeroz]

At the least, the backstrap on the off side is ALMOST always good. Really has to be quite the collision for guts to get up into backstraps. The deer will probably be more splatter than look like a deer. Ive seen everything from almost no meat loss to the one I saw this morning that was just a mushy hide on the side of the road. If I ever hit one I'll certainly try to salvage what I can.

I have cut up a bunch of deer that have been hit. A lot of them weren't dead when they were found. Typically I quick quarter them and call the local game warden for the next name on their In need spreadsheet. We typically have so much meat with what we hunt that I dont need roadkill, but I'm certainly not above it. People on the list are always super grateful and I hate to see wasted meat. I'll sometimes keep a half strap or something to eat right away.

 

[fpgt72]

Thanks for the info on the bruised meat, learn something every day. On this one I hit her on her right side and she came to rest in the ditch on the left side, a full on side hit. Strange this is the shit all over the side of the car, passenger side, her head would have been there at time of impact, so guessing she did a 360 in the air?