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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

Nearly always, it is the car that hits the moose, not the moose that hits the car.

Aka... Driver is darwin'ing themselves..

Aka... Driver is darwin'ing themselves..

I was with you for the first half, but I've seen moose on the road. They sometimes just appear, much like deer would just appear in the midwest. Even when you see them, you might not have much time to respond. It is amazing that they can blend into the woods so readily considering their size.

Deer can teleport, this is well known to anybody that has done sufficient mileage in Northern Canada.

You don't even have to go north, really. Just driving a few nights on a quiet, dark road outside the big cities late at night will convince you that deer 1) basically teleport 2) are stupid 3) can be absolutely terrifying when they show up out of nowhere, despite 2. (And yes, 2 only really applies w.r.t. cars and roads.)

Possibly time of year dependent, I guess, but seriously, one weekend of nightly midnight drives out in the Shuswap area of BC was all it took. I now/still respect the effects of the deer, but marvel at their unmitigated stupidity.

True. I crashed into one somewhere in Iowa, we weren't going fast, maybe 45 mph, the deer probably jumped up from the ditch besides the road. Poor deer. Great people in the village where we ended up with the damaged car, the local bodyshop guy opened up for us in the middle of the night, pulled the front more or less back into shape and plugged a hole in the rad and the valve cover. Total charge for 6 hours of work + materials: $0. So we could continue our trip to friends in the Rocky Mountains with only a slight delay when we originally thought we'd have to abort the trip right there.

Re: stupid.

I have surprised deer on the road, at night, and had them respond by running toward me. That did not help the probability of a collision...

I guess that people who never hit a deer think you're just joking, but I know what you mean. It's not just that they blend so well in their surrounding, but if they're moving very fast they can jump quite some distances.

I hit my first deer during a night-time driving lesson. It just manifested itself in a turn right in front of the car. It happened so freaking fast that even my driving instructor didn't get right away what happened. (To be fair this was his first deer accident too). There were just something flying in front of the car, getting hit and flying away to the side of the road.

It was very different from my imagination which formed during my childhood hearing adults talking about split second decisions in case of a deer appearing in front of the car.

Deer also have a survival instinct that works against them. You will sometimes see a deer cross the road going one direction and think that they're safe, but then they will suddenly jump in front of you going the other direction. The reason is the deer had a fawn and they see you as a big predator. So they had the fawn hunker down on the other side of the road and then jump in front of your face to distract you into chasing them to increase the chance that the fawn can escape.

If you ever see a deer cross in front of you, especially with a fawn in tow, slow down and be prepared to slam on the brakes because they might be preparing to jump right into your path. These kinds of accidents are especially deadly because they don't hit the bumper, they tend to smash directly into the windscreen, sometimes breaking through and crushing the front seat passengers.

Nearly always, but when they do hit it has some serious momentum. I was witness to the aftermath a pretty bad accident on the road between Barrie and Sudbury where a moose ran into a truck on the side. The truck overturned due to the impact, the moose (incredibly) ran on but probably died somewhere in the forest from its injuries.

I also came across a moose running across the road that cut through a forest and it never slowed down, they weave with their heads to keep the antlers from ramming into the trees in a way that is quite amazing. They run through a forest that I couldn't run through without clipping the trees and those animals are easily four times as wide.

Don't mess with moose.

Driving at night the animal is nearly invisible in the shadows of the road shoulder. Even in the day they can bolt without warning. Always a good idea to slow down if you do see them, and put hazard lights on to warn other drivers. Dawn and dusk are when they are most active.

In a split second they can walk in front of you before you can brake. Add wet, foggy, icy, or snowy conditions and the braking ability is even more limited.

you try driving for 3-4 hours looking at and scrutinizing every upcoming bush along the way. This is the dumbest and rudest take on accidents i've heard here.

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