Minor Damage - Bambi not as lucky

[CraigE]

Driving to work this morning in my 04 Partner. About 60mph on a country lane in the rain a medium sized deer ran from right to left in front of me.

I could not swerve for fear of going off road and braked.

I hit the deer and cracked my number plate and lost the N/S fog lamp through damage, plus a few scratches. Will ebay for a new unit and try repair as shown on another thread.

I am counting my blessings that no more damage or injury was sustained.

Big shame for Bambi though, gutted

[andy-womble]

Well what do you expect if you are doing those sorts of speeds on a country lane. No sympathies here mate. Could have been someone on the school run coming the other way.....

[taxi]

Lots of deer in these parts, always keeping an eye out in case. Sickened to find a very badly injured one. Even more shocked when I tried to contact animal rescue service and they wouldnt come out to help the very badly injured one that was lying on the road- too late at night. Thankfully the police came to assist.

[tucker]

60mph doesn't mean he was breaking the speed limit...

There are plenty of country roads with national speed limit rules. Nothing wrong with doing that speed where it's permitted. You can't acount for a wild animal darting in front of you.

It happened to someone at work at a lower speed and he suffered far more damage. The car wasn't driveable afterwards.

[jericlin]

The " Speed Limit " is only the maximum legal speed for the road it has been applied to. It is not neccessarily the speed you should or must drive on that road.

Braking distance at 60mph is said to be 240 feet ( 18 x the length of my Berlingo )With the advent of better brakes, vehicle stopping distances have reduced somewhat over the years but it has to be remembered that, no matter how good the brakes and tires, the laws of physics don't change.

The most important point for any driver to remember is that if you double your speed -- say from 30mph to 60mph -- your braking distance does not become twice as long, it becomes four times as far.:eek:
The biggest factor in stopping distances is the speed at which a driver reacts to seeing the hazard in question. Under ordinary driving conditions, very few drivers indeed can get onto the brakes within half a second, and two-thirds of a second to a full second is more typical.
Most frighteningly, Australian research has shown that the very people we expect to have the fastest reactions -- young drivers -- are particularly prone to effectively 'freeze up' with fear, at the sight of an unexpected hazard ahead, and their reaction time can therefore exceed two seconds.cratch:
The extent of damage depends on multiple factors, your speed at impact, weight of object hit, speed and direction of movement of the hit object etc. The " damage " is part of the designed requirement to absorb energy and protect the vulnerable contents of the vehicle which cost a lot more to repair.

[evdama]

CraigE and Tucker:Speed should be appropriate for the conditions.

The most basic driving standard,the Highway code states;

The speed limit is the absolute maximum and does not mean it is safe to drive at that speed irrespective of conditions. Driving at speeds too fast for the road and traffic conditions is dangerous.
If this mornings' journey was a driving test you would not have passed.

Substitute Homosapien for the Cervidae --you would almost certainly be in a prison cell right now.

You may not have been able to predict the deer going about its daily business but the environment and conditions were blatently obvious.

Every incident can be boiled down to a root cause and while speed might not have been the primary,it is usually a contributory.

Sorry if my lack of sympathy is possibly detectable ,as we live down a narrow twisty lane with ditches 5-6 ft deep in places and loons use it as a high speed rat run between two A-roads (with phones glued to ear,stereo thumping). They're often shocked when the inevitable happens.

[steve valentine]

Well what do you expect if you are doing those sorts of speeds on a country lane. No sympathies here mate. Could have been someone on the school run coming the other way.....

Believe it or not, some country lanes are actually straight.

I'll remember to be equally as unsympathetic when something happens to your berlingo through no fault your own.

[evdama]

Well what do you expect if you are doing those sorts of speeds on a country lane. No sympathies here mate. Could have been someone on the school run coming the other way.....

Believe it or not, some country lanes are actually straight.

I'll remember to be equally as unsympathetic when something happens to your berlingo .

If the lane was straight there was even less excuse for hitting something!

[mrbritse]

I wont comment on this situation cos I dont know what it was but... I used to live in the mountains in Spain, one night driving not too fast up a steep hillside road, pitch black on a warm spring night I heard a strange clicking noise through the open driver's side window. I looked over and saw a very large stag running beside the car. Quite a shock. Even more so when he took a flying leap over the bonnet landing in the road in front of me, I braked but couldnt avoid the collision. He bounced off the front of my Opel, shook himself off and disappeared into the night. Probably quite pleased with himself. The car was undamaged as far as I could tell, there were already quite a few dents. Just goes to show that sometimes animals are totally unpredictable and yes maybe driving in the country that should be remembered. Horses have a habit of doing that kind of thing too over here.

[ron]

In our area we have A roads with a 40 or 50MPH & off to either side narrow twisty lane with the national speed limit sign.It's the stupidity of planners that leave me agape.Sensible rules are respected,stupid one are ignored.