Thursday, January 04, 2007

POS Toyota - 1, Deer - 0

So it's been confirmed. I live in the freakin' bush!!

I was driving home last night. I have various routes I can take but last night I took the 407 to the end (Brock Road) and then highway 7. This means that from 7 I will come down either Westney or Audley. Usually I'll take Westney when I want to stop and grab groceries or something on my way home because I'll pass the stores along Kingston Road. Taking Audley means I'm coming straight home. However, lately I've been taking Westney as my normal route because it's got some lights on it. Audley is a very dark road at night as there are no street lights until I've reached Rossland. And the traffic that travels along this road travels well about the 80km speed limit which I am not comfortable doing when it's very dark and there are ditches, not sidewalks beside me. Westney on the other hand is fairly well lit up near highway 7 because it is fairly residential up there. However, there is a stretch where it is very dark and it's lined with tall brush along both sides of the two lane road.

So last night, I'm driving down Westney. Not fast, in fact, because I'm tired and I'd been yawning a fair bit on the drive, I'm actually driving a little slower than the posted 80km because I was coming down a steep hill and I've got nothing in front of me so there is no additional lighting to show up the road. The car behind me (I don't recall if there was more than one) was about two car lengths behind and driving about the same speed. All of a sudden there was a large deer walking into the road right in front of me!!! It was about 20 feet away when I hit the brakes and swerved to the left to avoid it. Thankfully there was no vehicle coming towards me in the other lane. It stopped, looked at me and stupidly started to move to the left as well but thought better of it. It turned to run off the road when I hit it. I pulled off to the side as did the guy behind me in the SUV. We checked over my car and there was no damage except to the right turn signal. He walks down the road to check things out. He came back and said that it was gone. He said he'd seen it get up and run off into the brush. I think I actually clipped it's butt as I turned because otherwise there'd have been way more damage. Had I not swerved away I would have hit that animal broadside. It would have done major damage to my car and very possibly me as well. As it was, I looks like I clipped it with the right front of the car and it rolled off it and was probably stunned for a moment. Had I been travelling much faster (as most of the drivers seem to do), it would have been a different story.

Thankfully it wasn't a moose.

2 comments:

wizdom said...

Venison

Anonymous said...

So now you have the "deer" experience, still to come the fox, wolf and bear. Dont worry it wont all happen this year!