Is a Deer Guard worth it?

Depends on where you run, I reckon. My old boss had these on all the trucks. Factory KW construction bumper with a flip down grille guard our shop made. The only disabling damage I saw in the fleet in my 10 years there was when one guy hit an elk and when another guy smoked a black cow outside of Leadore ID.

 

Hell yea. God seems to have blessed me with the ability to take out more deer with my truck than most deer hunters in their lifetimes. After driving for years nothing but old rattlecans and hand-me-down junk, I was issued my first BRAND NEW truck, still had the plastic on the seats. One of the very first new 2018 Cascadias. Fancy digital type dash, everything. I think I completed ONE trip. Then coming out of a paper plant in Louisiana, I was accelerating at 80klbs and whacked a deer at 47mph. Did over 10000 dollars in damage because it cracked the bumper, blew the fog light out of the bumper (that thing was never seen again) and put about a foot long crack in the hood right under the passenger side hood mirror mount. It damaged one LED headlights mounts so the headlight had to be replaced even though it worked fine, it was just hanging on. The truck was literally rendered DOT noncompliant at that moment, but a little duct tape and hope and I managed to limp back to the yard.

And that was at 47mph.

I quit that job and got a job where the company put cattle guards on all trucks. Yet again, whacked a deer, this time at 70. NO damage done to the truck, deer was mutilated.

Fast forward to a few months ago, and out of nowhere on I-59 north just west of Birmingham at 2am out of nowhere a deer comes flying out of the MEDIAN and slams into the SIDE of my cab, like right behind the driver door. I actually watched the landing gear of the trailer rip the carcass in half. No damage to the side of the truck, amazingly.

So if it were up to me, I'd hang cattle guards all the way around my tractor.

 

Now that's what I call a Smash burger.

HA!

Sirscrapntruckalot -

 

Yes definitely worth it especially for today’s plastic trucks. For some reason I haven’t put them on the two fords but the bumper on them is very heavy and quite a bit higher than the average truck. Both have hit several deer. So far no damage. You should see the mess after one is made to fit under the old rgn. I did build a nice heavy one for my old w9 since the hood is lower to the ground. Surprisingly it never got tested…I promise it would have worked we build lots of them for pickups and so far so good.

 

Leaving the road, such as when swerving, is how you die as a CDL driver. The other common way besides heart disease, is hitting stationary objects beside the road like bridge support. Hit the deer. If it's a moose (cow on stilts) it's over & the moose guard won't have a scratch but the moose will be coming through the windshield.

 

Yessir, you were trained like me. Moose is a death sentence. Keep it on the road.

 

It only takes one good hit for a herd bumpers to pay for itself

 

Nope...

You ain't getting what us old hands are putting down.

 

I dunno, you can have 100 years experience and do everything possible to avoid a possible deer, or moose hit, and it can happen anyways.

I've whacked probably two dozen deer over the course of 20 years of driving. About three quarters of the time there was no alternative. When you're coming around a corner with a tanker and one jumps down an embankment, whaddya gonna do? I know I'm not swerving