Over the decades I’ve lived in my house, I’ve driven literally hundreds of thousands of miles going back and forth between home and Park City. Live, drive, work, drive, play, and drive. It’s just how rural life works.  In all of that mileage over all of those years, I had never hit a de er until last week. And boy howdy, did I hit it.  I know the typical crossing spots. After a while you get to know the deer by name. Yes, they all look alike, but they are different, too. But they are sort of predictable, crossing at a little swale coming off the farm to the river to drink on a fairly regular schedule.  There have been some close calls, but no contact. The same with the elk herd that is getting displaced by subdivisions in Francis. There have been some slam-on-the-brakes moments there, but avoidable. Paying attention is key. But it’s all kind of a lottery no matter how careful you are. Apparently every 750,000 miles or so, your number is up. I was on S.R. 248 climbing the hill toward Kamas. There was a big vehicle in the left lane, so I couldn’t see anything to the side except the slab of SUV next to me.  The deer decided to run across the highway at about noon. It somehow cleared the westbound lane. The SUV next to me braked just enough to notice, but not enough to give me a clear view. The SUV missed it and the deer stepped right in front of me, and that was that. I wasn’t hurt, and no other vehicles were involved. It could have been worse. A kind woman in a car behind me stopped to make sure I was OK as I sat on the shoulder, also trying to make sure I was OK.  I called dispatch, who said they don’t deal with deer unless there is something really messing with traffic. The deer died, which is way better than being critically injured, but alive on the shoulder of the busy road.  The car was a mess, steam blasting out of the radiator, crumbs scattering about. The car is mostly made of Tupperware as best I can tell. All that plastic crumple zone stuff in fact safely crumpled, and while I was fine, the eviscerated Subaru was worse off than the deer. I drove it home, but it was done.  The insurance company sent out a tow truck, and a local body shop came up with an estimate. When the running total broke $10,000, they quit working on it. Nobody bothered to pry the hood open to see how bad it was inside. It didn’t matter. It was DOA. What followed was sort of amazing. The accident was at noon on a Thursday. I called my insurance agent mid-afternoon. The claims process came at me like a firehose, largely AI powered but a few helpful humans in there, too.  All of three business days later, I had the cash in my account. They made an offer so generous on a 10-year-old car with a lot of miles and duct-taped interior that there was no back and forth. They waived the deductible because I had been a loyal customer for so long. Not at all what I was expecting. While I’m on the hunt for a new car, I’m driving the farm truck. It’s a 20-year old pickup that cost me $135 to fill up on Monday. And again on Thursday. I don’t understand why anybody will drive one of those as their daily ride. Needless to say, I’m staying close to home for the most part.  For its day, the truck was pretty tricked out. But it doesn’t Bluetooth to anything, the backup camera is a postage stamp, and the transmission is a relic compared to modern trucks. And did I mention 14 mpg? It feels pretty primitive, but it’s getting me where I need to go for now. Deer collisions are a big deal. Insurance estimates runs up to about $10 billion in vehicle damage and medical costs each year from wildlife collisions. The average deer claim is north of $5,000.  A Pew Charitable Trust study puts the combined “societal and repair cost” of a typical deer collision at $20,000, and up to $110,000 for a moose collision (which almost always involves medical costs).  I don’t know how they are estimating the “societal cost.” It obviously is more than the cost of paying the guy with the worst job in the world to drive around a clean up the carcasses.  There is the aesthetic loss of seeing the moose happy and healthy in the wild, but since we haven’t figured out how to monetize scenic beauty directly, I don’t know what that value is.  Societal costs would also include things like the extensive fencing going in along local highways to try to reduce wildlife collisions, and even very expensive solutions like the overpass at Parleys Summit. But while I’m skeptical of the larger and more esoteric cost estimates, the actual cost of demolishing a perfectly functional car are very real and very measurable. Anyway, take it easy out there.   Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: Not the lottery I wanted to win appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less