Friday, December 08, 2006

Deer and Collisions

Just a couple of weeks ago, my mother-in-law hit a deer on her way back to our house after going to the store for a few things. This really tore her little Honda up pretty badly, doing about $4700 worth of damage. She was only traveling about 25 mph. Then earlier this week a friend of mine from church was traveling at 60 mph on a highway when a deer ran out in front of him. He was driving his van with his wife and six children in the vehicle. His damage was over $6800. What is the deal with these deer?! For many years I have wanted to hunt. I may just have a chance out here in Oklahoma. To date, I’ve not had a good place to hunt.

Something needs to be done, though, to relieve this obvious overcrowding of the deer population. When I hear of two people close to me, within a span of two weeks hitting deer, I can only guess that the same problem could very well happen to me. There’s not much I can do to prepare my Mustang for such an encounter, but I am seriously considering buying a heavy duty tubular steel bumper for our van. I can’t afford to lose it. In my opinion, they need to eliminate restrictions on hunting deer. Let hunters take all they want, at least for a time. Doing this would help public safety. We thank God that neither my mother-in-law nor my friend’s family from church were hurt seriously (though my friend’s wife and daughter are a little sore). I seriously doubt that removing limits from hunters would result in deer extinction. If the species actually begins to be threatened, then reinstate the limits. But for now, these deer would be much less of a public threat if they were stored in someone’s freezer.

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