Deer in the Headlights

The other day I was out early in the morning waiting for one of my co-workers to come out of his apartment so that we could walk up to work as we usually did. (Mind you this is about 4 in the morning, so there usually isn't a lot going on.) This time I was looking out at the street corner when I noticed about 50 yards away a shadow moved.

I watched a little more intently as a the silhouette of a deer emerged under a street light. It slowly looked both ways down the deserted street and then meandered across to drift into the neighborhood on the other side.

Often as I've sat outside my co-workers apartment I've wondered about what people think as they drive by seeing a shadow (everything at 4am is a shadow, silhouette, or some other nameless darkened shape,) standing quietly outside of a person's home and so I was grateful that the first actual incident wasn't involving police.

We began our walk up the hill to work and I mentioned the sighting which started our conversation about odd things that can occur so early in the morning (pretty much if anything happens that early in the morning it's going to be worth mentioning to somebody.)

Due to the snowy/icy sidewalk, we opted to walk out on the side of the road which had been plowed clear of such hindrances, my co-worker out towards the middle of the road and thus myself closest to the sidewalk.

Along our trail there are a number of other apartments and houses. One apartment complex is located behind the houses and has a long driveway coming out to the road. As we came closer to this driveway we noticed some headlights, which upon closer inspection belonged to a slowly approaching gray SUV.

The SUV's rate of travel verses our own speed made for a small debate, we would reach the point of intersection before the SUV would, but we were not on the sidewalk (remember, we'd opted to take the less slippery rout a.k.a. the roadside,) one of us was either going to need to slow down or stop. Now I feel I should make note here; I've been in this college town for long enough to become aware of the idea that pedestrians have the right-of-way. Assuming this I simply continued my pace towards our destination, my co-worker, followed suit. Something else I feel I should mention is that my co-worker and I are around the same size, both are 6'2" I just have a few more pounds on my body than he does, so it is probably safe to say that the two of us together are not invisible.

I'm sure that with all of this set up of the situation you can already determine what happened . . . yep, he HIT us! (Ok, I was actually the one closest to the sidewalk and the SUV didn't even touch my co-worker, so let me rephrase that: He hit ME!)

SUV idling down the driveway. Two tall, noticeable individuals walking up a hill. The pedestrians cross the path and continue onward. Driver continues onward as well, even after the two pedestrians have crossed right in front of his headlight and are now nearing the passenger side of his vehicle!

Luckily we were on the passenger side by the time impact was to take place and so I initiated contact by stiff-arming the hood of the SUV, pushing myself out of the way of the moving vehicle. (Hopefully I did a little bit of damage to his bug deflector.)

After the altercation my co-worker and I stopped to see what was going on with the driver who continued in much the same manner as if we didn't exist down the road. I was too confused by what had just happened to think enough to get the license plate information as the vehicle drove away. But now I'm keeping a sharp eye out for gray SUVs.

The more I ponder on the situation I find it a little ironic that I would happen to see a deer crossing the street and then shortly get hit myself . . .