Beware of Bambi

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

Elk outside of Estes Park.

The most dangerous animal in North America is not the grizzly bear. It's not the moose. Not the rattlesnake or any number of other critters you might suppose. The most dangerous animal is Bambi.

Each year in the U.S. about 150 people are killed in highway collisions with deer. One-third of those are on motorcycles. It happens to the best of us. A few years ago, Rider magazine's motorcycle safety columnist, Larry Grodsky, was killed when a deer ran in front of him as he rode his bike.

We have our share of deer stories to tell as well. One year the OFMC headed out of Denver on a Friday afternoon after everyone was able to get off work. Our destination for the night was Montrose, in western Colorado.

Dusk is a particularly dangerous time for encounters with deer and our route took us through Gunnison and west along the Blue Mesa Reservoir right about that time. Too dark already to see anything clearly, Johnathon, who was in the lead, was concerned about the gleaming eyes he kept seeing alongside the road. His concern was justified because soon enough there was this buck straight ahead.

Johnathon grabbed the brakes, the deer froze momentarily, "like a deer in the headlights," and then bolted. No harm done, but it sure got the adrenaline pumping. It was time to ride a little slower.

Another time we were in Idaho, just pulling out of Stanley in the morning. I was in the lead. Cruising through the woods I spotted a few deer on the left side of the road and immediately slowed down. As I pulled abreast of them the buck started trotting casually, effortlessly along, parallel to me at about 25 miles an hour. You can bet I had my eye on him, and my hand covering the brake lever.

Who knows what goes through the minds of deer, but as if to be deliberately perverse, he finally decided to bolt across the road right in front of me. I was prepared, I jumped on the brakes front and rear, and he made it safely across. Behind me, the guys told me later, a cloud of black smoke spewed from my rear tire as it locked and slid on the asphalt.

I could go on with other tales of deer encounters but there's a sameness to most of them that makes it pointless: You see them, you have no idea what they're going to do, and either you hit them or you don't. And the deer do get the worst end of the bargain most of the time. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that 350,000 deer die on U.S. highways each year. But just like bullets, if there's one that has your name on it there's no dodging it.

And then there's the story circulating recently on the internet about the guy riding a Harley who hit a grizzly bear. I assume this really happened because I saw the pictures of the dead bear and the damaged bike. The rider survived and the bear died, but the moral was that you shouldn't hunt grizzly bears with a Harley because the Harley is only good for one hunt.