"Deer in Headlights"

  • Published
  • By Capt. Sean Siddiqui
  • 49th Test Squadron
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. --  It was late one night as I drove down I-49 in the wonderful state of Louisiana, on my way to an exciting weekend in New Orleans for Halloween. As scary and as fun as a weekend on Bourbon Street might have seemed, what freaked me out even more were the two deer focused in the middle of my headlights, 200 feet ahead of me.

Doing the math, going 200 feet at 70 MPH you have roughly two seconds until you hit what is in front of you. The deer were truly in the headlights and they were not moving out of the way.

As I let off the accelerator and rapidly started increasing the brake pressure, I turned the wheel to the left, away from the woods where the two deer had emerged. As I did this, the deer went across the road away from the woods back into my headlights.

I couldn't believe it! I turned back toward the woods and again they went to the center of my headlights, as if we were in a street dance. There I was trying to get away from them, and they ran right back into my path.

At that point, they were so close that my only hope was to make a bid away from them at the last second. After my attempts to turn in both directions earlier, they still wound up in front of me each time. So, at the last second I jerked the car over in a last ditch maneuver and WHAM...WHAM!

One of the deer impacted the passenger's door while the other impacted just behind the backseat door. My passengers and I pulled over, inspected the damage and we didn't find deer strewn anywhere alongside the road. We conducted a safety check of the vehicle and continued on our way.

In the end, stopping straight ahead would have meant impacting two deer center-hood, resulting in at least 30 MPH of damage. By taking evasive action earlier, I prevented a head-on collision, but instead placed myself outside my lane, swerving considerably.

Please think about what you would have done in this situation and decide early what you would do. The moral of this story is that mental preparation is the key in emergency situations.