Killing a Deer with your Car – Is it Alright??

Earlier this week I had a insured call me that said he was riding his bike and a car turned abruptly in front of him.  He did what most of us would do and that was he slammed on his brakes and made a drastic turn to avoid collision with the car.  He did avoid hitting the car, but ended up flying over his handle bars and getting scrapped up enough were he was taken to the emergency room for treatment.  He was released with no major injuries, but did have some scrapes and bruises all over his body.  He contacted me to see if there was any coverage that could help him with the medical costs involved with this incident and here is what I found –

As a pedestrian your medical coverage on your auto policy would extend coverage to you if you were struck by a car while walking or in this case riding along the road.  The interesting thing is the word “Struck” – in order for coverage to be extended there had to be a collision with a vehicle.  So in this case my insured did not have coverage through his auto policy – if he hadn’t avoided the collision with the car and struck the vehicle – there most likely would have been coverage for him.

I know it sounds crazy that if he had NOT avoided collision with the car there might have been coverage for him – this also brought up a few other crazy coverage situations.  The first example is when you are driving down a highway and a car begins to merge into your lane without looking.  Our normal reaction would be to turn away from the car to avoid collision, but in turning away it may cause you to hit something or someone else.  Here’s the crazy part – if you turn away and hit something, the accident then becomes your fault.  However if you remain in your lane and allow the merging car to strike you, in most cases that accident would be their fault and in most states paid by their insurance carrier.

The last crazy example I have is concerning our friendly furry four-legged friends – the Deer.  If you’ve driven in the rural areas of our country I’m sure you’ve seen a few deer dash across the road.  And as a safe drive most of us would do anything we could to avoid hitting a deer if one happened to dash out in front of our cars.  We would take evasive action, that could cause us to strike something else, lose control of the car, and possible injure ourselves or someone else all to save the life of the deer!  In doing so you now create a “At Fault” accident – which could affect your insurance rates going forward.  Versus if you attempt to stop, but ended up striking the deer – that in most cases would be considered a comprehensive claim – and with most carriers your rates would NOT be affected.

Please don’t think that I am in any way advocating NOT avoiding collisions – but I thought it interesting that in some cases we as drivers and as pedestrians might be better off if we don’t avoid certain collisions.  If you have been in a crazy situation like any of these described above and would like to share we would love to hear from you.  Leave us the details in the comments below!