Wednesday morning, right outside of Seward, by the parade of flags, I noticed a deer on the other side of the road headed away from me. I let up on the gas and then noticed the other deer on the shoulder moving toward me. I did two things next, and I think one of them was wrong. I slammed on the brakes and slammed on the horn both at the same time.
The second deer had time to get to my lane and then spent too much time wondering what I was honking about.
I hit the deer.
But not too hard.
I pulled off the road to check out the damage. I’d seen lots of cars that had hit deer and wasn’t looking forward to seeing the front of the car. But it was surprisingly mild.
I spent a lot of the rest of the drive in to Lincoln trying to put those 1 or 2 seconds in some sort of order in my mind. I think I was going about 50 mph when I saw the first dear. I think I had my foot off the gas for maybe half a second before I hit the brakes and maybe a half second of braking before I hit the deer at maybe 35-40 mph. It could have been slower. I don’t think I could have been going much faster with that little damage.
The deer didn’t go over the car or up on the windshield or anything. There was no blood. The deer walked away. I think it gave me a dirty look for honking.
