Deer and motorcycle

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
Vermillion county, In is just north of my county, Vigo. News said man tried to avoid deer. Latest
update man is brain dead.

On way to town this morning there was a dead deer in middle of road.

Are deer more active this time of year when farmers are in the fields?

When I had a goldwing I had a deer jump out in front of me. I've always used both brakes, front and
rear. No idea why, I just came down hard on rear brake. That gave me just enough time to clear the
deer. We were close enough I could have touched the deer as we passed.

Gave up riding 15 years ago, back issues.

If you ride, Be safe, keep an eye out for deer.
deer and motorcycle
 
I've road on and off since I was 14 on the road and never had a run in with a deer or even a close call but maybe my bikes where to loud. I had a friend who did hit a deer years ago. Broke his arm and leg and spent a few days in the hospital due to it
 
Geo,

I knew a man that hit one square on at speed. He had ddeer bone embedded in his wrist/hand that his human bone eventually grew over the implanted deer bone.

He died at an early age.

D
 
Last fall an older couple, man and wife were headed home of a Harley trike, they hit a deer, killed her, he was crippled up for quite awhile, totaled the Harley.
 
I know four people who suffered life threatening injuries from deer/motorcycle accidents. All four of those accidents happened on Rt 28 with locals going to the annual bike bash in Lake George. Two of the four suffered head injuries that affected them the rest of their lives. Had a neighbor smack a doe and two fawns right in front of my place a few years ago. Busted up an ankle and lower leg pretty badly, but no permanent injuries.
 
While there are deer in the area, I saw a guy on a motorcycle that must have been going at least 150 on the service road to the highway I was going home on today. There was no traffic or side roads there so I guess he wanted to see what it could do. Only possibility of cross traffic would have been a deer.
 
The yearlings are on there own now and roving around, their mothers leave them on their own before they have new fawns. Otherwise I think deer are more active in November during the mating season. In N MN a lot of them get hit on the highway when it gets really dry, going to the Rainy River to drink. We are very careful riding our motorcycles, and never ride at night.
 
I have had close calls on motorcycles with deer, and the closest one I was on a bicycle. He jumped right over the top of me,scared the -rap out of a 7 year old.
 
A guy I know hit one going very fast, cut the deer in two and sod almost no damage to the bike and nothing to hide except deer Doo doo in his helmet.
 
A good friend and his wife got t boned by a deer that bent the frame on his road king. He got a skull fracture and she got all the bones around one eye broken.

Another's wife got the front tire hit on her sportster but it was still runnable. He showed a video of a bike on 2 lane divided road with trees off the right away. A deer ram across the median and jumped over the people on the bike.
 
I've bumped a few, never killed one with a vehicle, lucky I guess. I did witness a strange one in '91, was driving a triaxle dump on a 2 lane road, and a young buck came out from the right, crossed in front of me, put his head down and T-boned car like he meant to do it. Dented the door, took the mirror off and he laid dead on the side of the road, no blood meat, good one to take. Turns out the driver of the car was someone I went to high school with. It looked like he intended to charge the car, it was really odd.
 
I hit one in late summer of 1990. Going about 80 or so on a crotch rocket. Crested a little rise in the road and the deer was running across the road just past the rise. We would have been fine except when he heard the bike, he stopped quick and turned and looked at me just as I hit him right in the rib cage.

I had full leathers on and full face helmet and ended up with a broken finger and some kind of like rug burns. Leathers saved the day. They looked like I laid down and rolled around on a giant belt sander.

Deer was burst just about in half and flung to the opposite shoulder of the road. The impact was so hard that you could see the pattern of the fur embossed into the paint of the fairing around the headlights.
 
my son inlaw 's cousin was killed hitting a deer on his bike less than a quarter mile from home. his wife saw the whole thing as she was following behind in their car
 
One dark night in the 60's, I sensed something wrong in the road ahead and locked the brakes on my '55 Chevy. I slid right up to the carcass of a black horse lying in the middle of the northbound lane of old Rte. 13 north of Murphysboro, Illinois. I got out of the car and heard someone groaning. I searched around in the headlights and found a man lying in the roadside grass. He had hit this black horse with his 305 Dream Honda motorcycle and the horse was dead. I thought he was gonna die too. I ran to a nearby house and woke the family to call an ambulance. I stuck around until the ambulance arrived, then went on home. About three months later I was at Meyer's Cycle Sales in Percy, Illinois and a man was rolling a 305 Dream Honda out of the back door. He told me that they had just finished repairing it after he had hit a black horse in the dark north of Murphysboro. We had a big hand shaking and went our separate ways. Two chance meetings.
 
Some friends were riding one night and almost to the one guys house they noticed him slow then his taillight wobble and swerve then pull over. They pulled up alongside to see a deer laying across his arms. Yes, big strong farm boy.
When I was in college a rider hit a horse in the road, they had to put the horse down, rider was dead on impact.
 
Doesn't say if they were wearing helmets, but given the bike appears to be a Harley and give the nature of the man's injuries, it's a fair assumption they were not. Proper gear won't necessarily save your life, but it gives you a fighting chance.

With regards to your Honda, for decades Gold Wings have had "linked brakes", meaning the rear brake pedal also activates one side of the front brakes. So when you "came down hard" on the rear brake, you were actually applying both front and rear brakes. If you were on any bike other than a Gold Wing or ABS-equipped motorcycle, slamming on the rear brake would likely result in a dump.

I've never had any close calls with deer, but I know a couple of guys who hit deer and survived. A few years back I was riding in WV and a bear ran out in front of me. Had I come along a few seconds earlier it could have turned out badly. I also worry about big birds like Sandhill cranes and turkeys. Even a pheasant could be bad news at 70 mph.
 
We had a guy here hit a deer on his Harley, got knocked off the bike, then some idiot ran him over with a truck. Last I heard, he was a paraplegic. They never caught the truck guy.
 
I hit and killed a deer with an 86 Honda Shadow a little over a decade ago. 1 am coming home from bowling with a 16# ball in my backpack. She was in the road and moved off. I looked for more and seeing none got back on the throttle. I think it echoed off the tree line because she turned around from the hill she had climbed and jumped right in front of me with not enough time to stop. I flew over the handlebars and my forward momentum was stopped with her body so I go relatively little road rash. It broke my collar bone and I was shook up but otherwise came out pretty darn lucky. Hit my head pretty hard and screwed up my helmet, but I do credit it with preventing pretty bad injuries. I always used a 3/4 helmet and found them to be a nice compromise of comfort and protection, it did it's job that night. Owned another bike since but now I have a 6 year old daughter and figure the farming is enough danger, I don't need to risk more with a bike.
 
Never thought about deer and motorcycles.

I was an avid rider in the 60s and early 1970s but there were no deer around here then.

Wouldn't consider riding these days considering the deer menace and the way people drive cars and heavy trucks.

Dean
 
Local couple here a couple of years ago. He got out in front of her and when he got to a cross roads decided to let her catch up. When she didn't show up he went back to look for her thinking she'd broke down. She'd hit a deer. Injuries were serious enough they told him that had he of gone home and waited 10 minutes or so to look for her she wouldn't have made it. She was riding again by the end of summer.

Rick
 
George, the "unified" braking system was introduced with the 1983 model year, so your '85 should have had it. It very possibly saved your life. The "linked" brake system, introduced in 2001, took this concept further.

The unified brake system works a lot like an automotive brake system: Pressure is applied to the rear brake only after sufficient pressure has been applied to the front to open a proportioning valve.
Gold Wing braking systems
 
I just saw tonight on the 6PM news a guy was killed today about 45 miles north of Duluth, Mn after hitting a deer on his motorcycle. No other details yet.

DWF
 
> Mine didn't have unified brakes. May have been an option.

From the article: "...Honda also made unified braking a standard feature on all Gold Wings from 1983 forward."

Did somebody disable yours? That would be insane.
 
Bike was not a Harley,Jap copy,I don't ride at night and always wear a helmet,70 plus and still love it.
 
Mark,
I had to work on my brakes and drain fluid. I can tell you my front brakes were independent from rear brakes. When I came down on rear brakes bike slid sideways.

I came very close to buying a GL 1800 15 years ago. I think ABS was extra. I was impressed with unified brakes on the 1800

The brake calipers on unified brakes had two brake lines and different pistons in caliper. One for front and one for rear.
 

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