RE: DEER!

[Ed Kellock <EKELLOCK@ECS-INC.com>]

Whoa!!!  Reel it back in just a bit here.  No one's talking about crippled
pedestrians.  There is no assumption about where cars belong.  This is no
question of rights.  Roads, _by_design_, exist for the sole purpose of the
travel of cars upon them.  People know that and are taught to be mindful of
cars when crossing roads (except maybe in Los Angeles).  Have you ever tried
crossing a street in New York City?  Our poster here was paying attention,
saw the deer, avoided the deer, and lived to bitch about tree huggers.

The point as I understood it was that due to the sometimes misguided efforts
of "tree huggers" (also variously know as anyone sympathetic to nature in
one way or another) there can be, in some areas, an overabundance of some
element of nature that might ordinarily, of it's own accord not be quite so
abundant.  This intercession by man/woman into nature's affairs can
sometimes cause other men/women to come into contact with that element of
nature when they ordinarily might not.  

This interplay between so-called "tree huggers", nature, and "non
tree-huggers" can lead to resentment by the non-tree's to be mad at the
tree's for helping to make it such that there are more of the nature-things
than the non-tree thinks there ever should have been in the first place.  

I for one agree with the original poster.  Having fortunately, successfully
dodged a deer or two during my tenure in the midwest, it became readily
apparent that there's a whole helluva lot more than nature going on out
there in nature.  

Case in point:  Highway 35 on the east bank of the Mississippi south of
LaCrosse, WI.  There is a home on the inside of a curve and on the other
side of the road there is a guardrail to keep cars from going off the road
and down a slight embankment and into the river.  The home is situated a
normal distance from the road, say about 20 yards back.  This homeowner has
chosen to place a bale of hay and a pile of some sort of seed or meal in his
yard no more than 15 yards from the edge of the road to entice deer to come
and feed so the homeowner can enjoy nature up close and personal.  Homeowner
has even gone to the trouble of mouting a brilliant floodlight so that this
can be seen at night.  So what do you think is seen lying dead on the side
of the road at least 3-4 times a year.  A rotting, stiff, dead deer carcass.
How beautiful.  Ah, the glory of nature.  The stupidity of man.  (The
homeowner, not the drivers.  Trust me most driver's there _do_ go the speed
limit.  I have passed enough of them to testify to this.)  Do I feel that
homeowner should bear _some_ responsibility for this specific, unfortunate
meeting of deer flesh and sheet metal??  In this particular instance, you're
damn right!
(Disclaimer:  This is a very real case, and though an exaggeration of the
overall point, is an attempt to exemplify the relation between man and
nature when man tries to manipulate nature for any reason.)

And if pedestrians made a habit of ignorantly darting into the path of an
obvious threat such as a moving vehicle, one moving legally down it's
designated travel area (aka _a_road_), then I might not have much sympathy
for them either.

I realize that in the example originally offered, there was a stated excess
of speed.  The fact is that deer can deftly get themselves schmered pretty
well by a car going 45 too.  Excessive speed would have been a
_contributing_ factor at best.  Would you proclaim him blameless if he hit a
deer while exactly obeying the speed limit?  Do you ever exceed the speed
limit?

Educate thyself.

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Matt Howe [SMTP:ismhowe@state.me.us]
> Sent:	Friday, July 10, 1998 2:33 PM
> To:	quattro@coimbra.ans.net
> Subject:	Re: DEER!
> 
> It doesn't matter what the road hazard consists of; deer, children, cats,
> rocks, buildings, etc.  You are 100% responsible for where your car goes,
> and what it hits or doesn't hit, always and everywhere.  It's foolish to
> make the assumption that you have more "right" to be on the road or live
> on
> the earth than another animal, whether you live in the ghetto, or the
> Siberian tundra.  Being smarter doesn't make your life more important, it
> just makes it easier to stay alive.  Why should some "tree hugger" have to
> pay for your lack of awareness and/or driving ability.  Before you allow
> your blood pressure to reach dangerous levels because of an offense to
> your
> self-righteousness, please try to consider more than your insignifigant
> personal existance when making decisions.  If you were a pedestrian who
> had
> gotten crippled by a speeding motorist who wasn't paying attention you
> might
> have a more enlightened point of view on driving.  I'm not trying to start
> some kind of silly flame-war here, I'm simply making an attempt to educate
> you.  If you believe my philosophy to be wrong, I would love to hear
> suggestions, I won't profess to know everything.
> 
> -Matt
> 
> Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 08:06:31 -0500
> From: Todd Young <tyoung@wamnet.com>
> Subject: DEER!!!
> Damn deer, these are the suburbs, there aren't supposed
> to be animal road hazards.  Granted the Twin Cities
> probably has a bit more foliage than your average big
> metro area (or HAD more foliage, before all these
> wind/rain storms we've had).
> Driving in to work this morning, cruising @ 60mph
> (in a 45 zone) when I see this big brown beast come
> prancing out into the road from the left. BRAKES!
> (Thank Audi Gods for 4 wheel disc brakes) Lucky
> for me, a sport-ute coming from the other direction
> clipped the critter and sent him/her spinning. I had
> already slowed to a crawl and it got up and ran back
> off the left side of the street. I never even got close
> to hitting it, but it sure surprised me.
> Next time some tree hugger starts complaining
> when a city wants to eliminate the deer population
> in an area, tell them they can pay for the body
> work on all the vehicles that hit the damn things,
> otherwise shut-the-hell-up.
> - --
> Todd Young              WAM!NET Inc.
> tyoung@wamnet.com       6100 West 110th Street
> 612-886-5051            Bloomington, MN 55438-2664
> 800-585-1133 ext.5051   http://www.wamnet.com/
>