A Deer’s Unforgettable Aerial Adventure: The Wildest Volkswagen Beetle Collision Ever!

Okay, hark, ye, mates, and we have a tale to tell ye, which is out of this world literally! When it comes to deer on the road, particularly at night, you are already aware of the fact that the problem is real, especially in the rural areas. They are a complete pain when one is driving at night, and it seems almost impossible to pass one of them hanging on the road shoulder, or even an entire family of them. But what we are going to plunge into? This pushes deer encounters to a new level. We are talking of a crash so crazy, so incredible, that you have to see it to believe it.

Imagine this: a dashcam is rolling, and it is recording the hum of a highway in Montana. Then suddenly a poor deer makes a fatal choice to attempt to cross the road. Boom! A Beetle, the famous little car of Volkswagen, crashes into the deer. However, it is not just any collision. No, this is the type of thing that leaves your mouth agape and then you question whether you have just witnessed a malfunction in the matrix.

In the video, that deer is not merely hit, it is shot up! It is more than 50 feet in the air, flying so high that it even goes off the view of the dashcam of the car coming at it. It was like it was thrown off a catapult. Frankly speaking, it does not even look real. But trust us, it is. This must be one of the craziest deer car crashes I have ever witnessed.

But, by the way, you may be asking yourself why this very collision was so aerodynamic there is a reason. Volkswagen Beetles with the low and rounded front end have been infamous in terms of being damaged by hitting the deer. This design has the potential of being thrown into the air and hitting creatures such as deer. And, to tell the truth, since a Beetle is a small vehicle, the damage can be even greater to the car itself. However, consider how it would be to be the driver or to be a witness of this crazy scene in real life! It’s truly something else.

We have all been there, of course, or heard of someone who has: that sickening experience of knowing you have hit a deer. It is no fun knowing that it will cost you a lot of money to fix your car, not to mention the sadness of the animal. Deer are comparatively large animals, the bucks weighing 100-300 pounds, and 6 feet in length, and the does weighing 80-200 pounds, and 5 feet in length. These are leaf-eating, grass-eating, and other vegetation eating herbivores, and they are magnificent, but they can do some serious damage on the road.

The reason why deer collisions are so frequent

The deer are mostly active in the dawn and dusk, and it is precisely at these times that the visibility on the road is frequently low. Add to that their propensity to wander freely on roads and highways and you have a disaster in the making. Such collisions may be fatal to the deer and the driver and may result in major damage to the car. It actually does suck all around and may even tot your car, probably kill the deer and in some cases even harm the driver in case the deer goes through the windshield.

But all the meetings with deer are not necessarily the collisions. To the hunters of you, it is more than just filling the freezer with some tasty venison to drop a big ol’ buck. It is also concerning that great mount on the wall! It is antler mounts, skull mounts, shoulder mounts, pedestal mounts or even a full body mount should you have a large trophy room to place it. Consider an example of Texas resident Shaun Pruett. He posted his own original “jumping over the railing to its death mount” to Trophy Rooms of the World and it immediately received a fairly viral response. Discussion of a conversation starter!

Then there is Mark Peterson of Michigan. He may be familiar to you, may be, in case you are a fanatic hunter. Mark is an owner of Worldwide Trophy Adventures, a hunter, and conservationist who tours the whole world in search of the best hunting experience. His trophy room, which was the subject of an episode of Whitetail Cribs, is a real Bass Pro Shop, with deer, elk, fowl, sheep, goats, bears, and even some African species, such as cape buffalo. It’s absolutely insane! This taxidermist of this dude must be making a fortune, as several of the remarks on the video indicated, to afford spending that kind of money on his hunts. Although there are different views about hunting, when you are a proponent of hunting, you cannot but admire such a great collection.

Back to the crash side, the internet is full of tales of people who have had their own experiences with deer. On TheSamba.com, a Volkswagen fan club, the users have posted their experiences. Ithaca user 66 Bugman, who resides in deer country, was interested to know how a bug would perform against a medium size deer. He said he had seen a photograph of a bus that was completely smashed up when it hit a buck, and that he had heard of a person who had broken only glass lights, which did not sound quite plausible.

Bart Dunn, another user, remembered how he had shot a deer in college in his bug in the year 1969. Totaled the fender that struck it, but otherwise the car was all right, he said. He also mentioned that a head-on collision would be more damaging but believed that there was more crumple space in a bug than in a bus, so he would rather hit a large, heavy, and mostly water-filled object in a bug. Interesting point of view, right?

Actual Accounts of Unforeseen Effects

Djkeev of Reading, Pennsylvania, added his voice, pointing out the sheer number of variables in this equation. “How fast are you going? Is the deer in the road or in flight? Where do you hit the deer? What is the point of collision of the deer and the car? How big is the deer? Will the deer go round on the hood? He has lived in deer country, too, and told some really harrowing stories.

Djkeev described striking a deer that “banged the grill of my 68 BMW 2002, bent no tin and he ran away into the woods. But then he told a chilling tale of a neighbor whose car struck a deer that rolled through the windshield and the still-living deer kicked the driver, which seriously hurt him and sent him to the hospital weeks. Worse still, he added that there was another neighbor who had not even struck the deer; a coming car struck and threw the deer on her windshield, killing her in the process. He said, there is no answer here at all, it is a chance you have to take and see what it will do you in case it should. Intense stuff, right?

Flux cap of Newnan, Georgia, had his own story of hitting a deer not much less than a year earlier. He was traveling at an approximate speed of 50mph when a good-sized buck hit his hood and crushed his fender, caved in the door, and struck the rear fender. He had to open the door, pretty much, by force. However, he said, he was really impressed with the way the a and b pillars supported themselves, and he was proud to demonstrate his bug all fixed four months later. How much a witness to his resolution!

Rzepko6194 had a slightly different accident when he hit a Rottweiler with his 74 Super Beetle at approximately 25 mph. The telescoping bumper caved in and remained so on one side, and that was all that the car could do. The dog, at the same time, shot 20 feet down the road, “dusted himself off and continued on his way. Talk about a tough dog! But in the main, as crowe66 of Maryland crudely said: “look story short you strike a deer, and you will be the loser!

Another unbelievable story was given by Glutamodo of Douglas, Wyoming, who was involved in a crash with a deer in his 1962 Beetle at an approximate speed of 70 MPH one morning at dawn on I-76. He merely stopped and dragged the fender off rubbing against my tire and passed on my road. He was glad it was daylighting, and he did not require that headlight anymore! These tales actually emphasize the vagaries of such experiences.

Deer Crashes in the U.S. and Worldwide

In addition to these fanciful individual accounts, the issue of deer-vehicle collisions is a huge one not only in single states, but also in much of the United States and even other countries. An example is a retired PR professional, Bonnie Sashin. Following a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner with her family in the suburban town of Fairfield, Connecticut, she and her husband were on their way to a nearby hotel after the sunset in her new Subaru Forester SUV. They were about to turn the corner out of the subdivision when she heard something strike the car. It was black, and she was frightened, but some good woman before them halted, disembarked, and assured them, “Oh, it was a deer. It is a daily occurrence around here.

And she’s not wrong! This is a lethal issue with deer that is much more prevalent than most people think. These shocking statistics of the United States are the result of a November 2022 study published in the journal Cell Biology: approximately 2.1 million deer-vehicle collisions happen annually. That’s a mind-boggling number! The economic losses of over 10 billion every year and 59,000 human injuries and 440 human deaths annually are attributed to these collisions. Indeed, according to Kip Adams, the chief conservation officer of the National Deer Association, every year, deer are far more dangerous to Americans than those frightening movie and television villain’s sharks, alligators, bears and venomous snakes. Bambi is far more to be feared than Jaws!

The United States is not the only one struggling with this issue of deer. In 2023, the nature agency NatureScot in Scotland estimated that 700 individuals are injured or killed in deer-vehicle accidents in the United Kingdom each year. And they have this problem in distant locations such as British Columbia, Japan, Australia and Germany as well. What then can the drivers do to guard themselves against these undesirable interviews with our hoofed friends?

According to Kip Adams, the most effective device in the fight against a deer-collision is not an expensive gadget, but the knowledge itself. He told CNN Travel that the first step in assisting to reduce hitting one is to know when they are most active. Deer are crepuscular, i.e. most active at dawn and dusk. They have eyes that are designed to assist them to evade predators and locate food in the most favorable environments of low-light conditions. But that is not our optimum vision time. The combination of those two factors being more active during the periods when we cannot see as well actually contributes to more deer-vehicle crashes during those periods, Adams said. Chad Stewart, a deer, elk and moose management expert with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources concurs saying that the hour before and after both sunrise and sunset are the highest hours of the day where a collision can take place.

Although collisions may occur at any time, Adams warns, there are two periods of the year which are usually more dangerous. The former is spring, fawning time. According to him, deer are much more active around the roads, as the does are so protective of the areas they are having fawns in that they are more likely to be spread out all over the land and more likely to be near a road. But autumn is really the most dangerous season, and it is during the month of November, that deer greatly increase their daily movement patterns, especially of the bucks. This is supported by research conducted by the State Farm Insurance company, which revealed that the most probable month of an animal collision is November.

Where Collisions Occur the Most and How to be Safe

And it is not only in the woods that you have to be on the alert. The accident in which Bonnie Sashin hits a deer in a Connecticut suburb demonstrates that you do not necessarily need to be in the wilderness to run over a deer. Stewart warns that in most cases, the suburban places may have a greater concentration of deer and since more miles of vehicles are driven in the suburban places than in the rural places, the total number of collisions is likely to be the greatest in the suburban places. Be careful, then, in your own little neighborhood!

Adams recommends taking extra caution where the woods meet the road directly because we have hardly any chance of seeing those deer before they are before a vehicle. The suburbs are a great menace, he said, since it is very hard to control the deer in the suburbs. In most instances we are not able to enter there and hunt as we do in more country districts. It’s a tricky balance, for sure.

The issue of deer-vehicle collision is simply bigger in some states in the US than in others. State Farm gathers statistics on an annual basis, and though they include all animal-vehicle collisions, most of them involve deer. West Virginia tops the list of high-risk areas with drivers having a 1 in 40 risk of being involved in an animal claim per year. Adams is no exception, observing that the Mountain State is rich in forests, deer are numerous, and the roads are winding through the woods, all of which decrease the visibility. The remaining five states in the top five list are Montana (1 in 54 chance), Michigan (1 in 59 chance), Pennsylvania (1 in 61 chance) and Wisconsin (1 in 63 chance). And so, when you are driving in these states watch those eyes!

After you have the knowledge of when and where the greatest risk occurs, it is time to implement certain defensive driving measures. According to Stewart, there are simple rules of safe driving that can help you to decrease your risk of a crash. First of all, do not drive distractedly. He also recommends that one should drive slowly in places that have a lot of deer so that they can be able to react better in case one leaps in front of your car. Adams also writes that it is a good idea to use your high beams as much as you can in the deer country, but do not forget to blind passing traffic!

Stewart does not buy gadget solutions, as he says, “Things such as car mounted whistles have not been shown to reduce or prevent collisions, and it would be better to save your money and not fall into a false sense of security with such products. But do not leave out your reliable car horn, which is recommended by the National Deer Association in a YouTube video. Some of the best tips provided by the Michigan State Police: deer normally move in single file, and, therefore, when you see one, you can expect others to be around. Also, observe the headlights in the eyes of a deer and the silhouettes of deer on the shoulder of the road, and always check the roadside, particularly in the wooded lots, fencerows, field edges, and in places near water.

Split-Second Choices and Deer Surprising Behavior

And now, the really difficult one, the moment when you are making a split-second decision and a deer suddenly appears on the road. You have to fight that swerving it is human nature to do so, but you must fight that urge. The reason is that Michigan has a campaign known as the Don’t veer for deer. Stewart elaborates that although no one would wish to run over a deer, there are much more serious results of driving around to avoid a deer and running over another object such as a telephone pole or even another vehicle. Adams, in a fatherly manner, says the same thing, saying, it is much better to hit a deer with the front of your car going straight where that car is designed to handle an impact than to swerve and run off the road and possibly hit a tree or another car.

People can also interact with deer in other wild ways other than collisions. Keep in mind that housewife outside Hagerstown, Maryland, whose security camera filmed an entire herd of deer racing full speed in front of his garage door? Discuss a jaw-dropper! Fortunately to the rest of the herd the head of the pack plowed into the door, and the others had time to halt. You can hear the scream of the homeowner, screaming WHAT THE F*CK!? following the big bang that burst the door leading into the house at the garage. The air pressure had altered such that it even burst open his kitchen door to the garage! He later on discovered that the door had fur on it and that one of the deer had passed through his back gate and left it mangled and flat on the ground. “Damn deer” he exclaimed. These are certainly animals that make us jump!

It is also important to keep in mind that, although deer are usually docile grazers, they do not like to be fed, and captive-reared deer or those that lose their fear of humans may turn into dangerous creatures. Incidents of people being literally attacked by deer are infrequent, but there are reports of captive animals being hand-reared and then literally attacking their owners. An example is that a Colorado woman was quoted as having illegally raised a young deer which later on attacked and gored one of her neighbors. And in 2023, a Florida man had his pet deer euthanized on the street by the authorities after the deer attacked one of his neighbors. A tourist in Greece came too close to a deer to take a selfie and was rammed, which broke some of her ribs. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reminds all people that they should not feed deer and should treat all wild animals with respect and care.

Another sphere where the interaction between humans and deer may fail is hunting, but the accidents are not very frequent. In 2019, an Arkansas hunter with more than 30 years of experience died of antler wounds after shooting but failing to kill a deer. Professionals advise that it is advisable to wait 15 to 30 minutes before approaching a shot deer to make sure that it is no longer dangerous. Adams however emphasizes that the greatest threat in deer hunting is other humans. Hunting is a very safe sport, and it has become much safer since the past couple of decades with hunter safety programs, but accidents still do happen. And it is quite evident that the worst man in the woods to you, when you are hunting, is the man you walked in the woods with. Then a word of caution to your hunting friends, such as Adams gives to his family, is worth a lot.

Aftereffects of a Collision and Conclusions

Returning to the Thanksgiving night crash of Bonnie Sashin, the consequences were a long time to unravel. She was advised best by the kind Samaritan, who said: call the police because you are going to want a record with your insurance company. Later, Bonnie found out that a friend that did not call the police immediately had a difficult time with the adjuster. The front fender of her new car had been smashed in, but fortunately she and her husband were able to drive it back to Massachusetts, where they were informed that it could be fixed, and not scrapped. Her body shop man, Paul, informed her, Bonnie, get in line. You see how many cars I have that have been run over by deer within the past week? She had five or six before her! It took her until February to have her SUV repaired since it is so difficult to find parts these days.

Although the wait is long and the inconvenience, Bonnie and her husband still drive to family trips in the Northeast but now they are more careful to be off the road before night. She is so thankful that they were not injured, or the car was destroyed, and she concludes that she was lucky. And that is actually the lesson here, people. Deer sightings, a wild air hit, a garage door hit, or a roadside surprise are part of life in most places. Knowing, being watchful, understanding when and where to be extra careful and above all, driving defensively can be the difference. Therefore, strap in, keep your wits, and may you never have a deer experience to remember, or a deer to remember, an air-to-air experience you will never forget, or your vehicle!

Having visited all the unbelievable dashcam videos and professional knowledge and real-life stories, one thing becomes very clear: knowing how the deer behave and being attentive on the road can save a lot of lives. Such experiences are not isolated cases, and they happen to drivers all over the country, whether in the small towns or on the open roads. By being more intelligent in their habits, understanding the most active times and being relaxed whenever something unexpected occurs, drivers can significantly minimize risks. Ultimately, being aware and ready is the best offense, and unexpected animal interactions become controlled situations that keep people and animals safer.