Living in NJ as long as I have (all my life) you have to figure I’ve seen and done a thing or two. I’m not saying my great state has everything on offer, but we do have lots of possible sites, activities and various types of people you can encounter, and if you are of a mind, enjoy. But something I have pretty much missed out on and have been quite happy to have avoided so far, is being hit by or hitting my car into a deer.
Well, I broke my streak last night.
I pride myself on being a rather careful and aware driver. Considering the thick population we have here in the Garden State and how many drivers we have on the road (and lots of wacky ones at that, as I have told you here before) I really have had few accidents in my decades of driving. Hitting or being hit by a deer is something we NJersians look out for on the road, especially if one is traveling in our more wooded/rural areas. Where I was last night was a main highway, not rural at all, so although I wasn’t particularly looking out for deer in that area, my Spidey senses were keen as usual for anything that might come at me.
I seemed to pass a heavy traffic police presence in the few miles I traveled so I was probably even more aware than usual to not speed.
Then…bam! The deer came careening across the two lanes, smacked the right front of my car and went on his way. Clean, quick, ‘impactful,’ just like that! I wasn’t thrown off the road and my car just kept puttering onward as my tank-of-a-1996-Buick-Regal does. I pulled into a hotel parking lot to check the situation and while, yes the right side of my hood was popped up with a major dent and I had to tuck my head light into the bumper so as not to fall to the side and I could see the grill on that same side was mangled, the car seemed to run me home the ten minutes it took without incident.
So, there is my “A deer ran into my car, finally, as I drove in NJ story.”
There is some car body fixing to do to be sure, which of course, nobody ever has the extra funds for (I really was saving that money for a butt implant) but in the end I got to walk away unscathed and didn’t cause any kind of trouble for any other driver.
I hope Bambi is ok though.
