I drive 20 miles of narrow, winding, hilly, paved farm to market road just to get to the highway. Myself and my family have had plenty of encounters with deer. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.

We too have been fortunate enough not to have any injury to us.

Friday night I was driving back from Kansas in my C Class and was only about 15 miles from home. It was almost midnight and the weather was really starting to warm up. This seemed to move the critters around quite a bit, even the deer. First I hit a Possum, it lost. It ended up quite flat.

Then I was coming around a tight turn and two large doe were coming across the road. All I could do was jam the brakes and hold on. The ESP light on the dash flashed and the computer took over. I was totally amazed, but the car did not spin out, but came to an ABS/ESP brake grinding stop. Just as I was coming to a stop, I hit the deer on the right front. Since I was almost stopped it was a very slight bump with no damage. The deer ran away seemingly unharmed.

A little over a year ago I hit one with my 300E. Since then I put on Euro lights. I have found that having really good lights is about the best you can do in preventing these incidents.

Have a great day,

My thoughts exactly, that was my number one reason for upgrading the lights, after that was looks. I have yet to hit a deer but I ruined some brand new tires in my Grand Prix a few years back avoiding one. I must have had at least the front two tires locked up for a couple hundred feet (I'm a perfect ABS canidate, when the wheels lock up I press the pedal harder!)!! One made it across but as they heard that awful squealing nearing them they ran away from the road, otherwise I would have got them going about 30mph. Only road damage I ever got from making road kill was a cat I hit going about 20mph, couldn't stop because some jackass was tailgating me. He backed off once he seen me jab the brakes and an animal rolling from under the vehicle.... It ripped the air damn off that same car. The cat wasn't there the next day but I doubt it catching that bumper at 20mph would just knock it out.

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

How about a pic of the deer? LOL.
-David

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2000 Honda Accord V6 137k miles

1972 300SEL 4.5 98k miles

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BoostNBenz,

Maybe we need to have a roadkill/carkill thread. I have done lots of damage to cars over the years by hitting animals. Some of them are very strange. The animals rarely won.

It's all the night time driving on the lightly traveled winding roads that has put me very high in this category.

Have a great day,

Euro lights (on a W124 or W123) will make a HUGE difference in reducing your chances for encounters with deer on back roads. I have to travel 5 miles on a dark back road to get to my house at night, when I'm driving a euro equipped MB I see deer lurking in the fields and sometimes very near the road at least 50% of the time. When I'm driving my Dodge truck I can see them maybe 10% of the time.

How in the world can the people at NHTSA NOT mandate that EVERY car sold in the US be equipped with euro style lights??

Glad to hear nobody was hurt in out latest deer/human encounter....

dumb question........

why are the euro lights better?

where can you buy them?

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Jennifer
90 350sdl

The euro lights are better primarily due to superior lens and reflector shape.

The US required sealed beam lights for all cars sold in the US for many, many years. That law was finally lifted in the early nineties or so. From that point on, the same lights put on the cars for German delivery were allowed in the US.

I have no idea for sure, but it appeared that companies such as GE had lobbied for the sealed beam law in the late thirties and it stuck for all those years.

Ford Motor Company was quite active in getting this law changed. We owe them thanks for forging the way toward superior lighting on ALL cars now delivered in the US regardless of their manuafacturer.

Have a great day,

Quirky thing about car/deer incidents (as far a NJ insurers go anyway).

I have a fried you collided with a deer in 2002. Front end damage. His insurance company paid under "collision coverage" but also awarded him 4 "insurance points" that up'ed his premium.

A year later he was involved in another deer collision but this time the deer hit the moving car on the side. Result: insurance paid under “comprehensive coverage” and no awarding of insurance points and thus no increase in premium cost.

Reasoning: In the second instance "the car did not hit the deer, the deer hit the car ". Go figure.

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Toblin

'79 300D, "Liesel von Diesel", 235K

I kid proofed the house....but they still get in

Did the insurance company try to sue the deer population to reimburse them for the damage done to the side of the car? They were at fault after all....

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

I’m sure this wont go over too well with the cat lovers out there. But, if Larry Bible wants a “Roadkill/Carkill” picture thread, here’s a classic:

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LMAO!!!

I won't show this to the wife. She's the cat lover.

I've been working like crazy since 6AM this morning. This was just the laugh I needed.

Many thanks,

Yum! Roadkill buffet!

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

Well I feel very fortunate to have not hit a deer (yet). I've come close a bunch of times. All of which I was glad that I have an MB with kickass brakes! The best one was when I came around a bend and found two deer mating in the middle of the street. Squealed the tires and scared the **** out of the deer. The doe ran off immediately and the buck stood there dazed and then skidded his hooves in the street trying to run off. I laughed for 15 minutes straight.

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1984 190D 2.2 Auto 220k
2001 Jeep Cherokee Sport 70K
2004 Lexus RX-330 ??K
2005 Chrylser Crossfire LTD 6K

Play guitar? Go to www.cyberfret.com for free online lessons!

For cat humor try bonsaikitten.com

Here is a roadkill classic, with a twist.

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