[Steve Dallas]

This happened to me on my trip out to Milwaukee from Seattle for Thanksgiving. Didn't get it on dashcam though.

I've had encounters with deer before...lots of times. Most involve braking/stopping before hitting the deer. I've actually hit a deer just once, though 2 others turned around and run into the side of my vehicle with no damage to the car.

Heading out to Milwaukee, I had a more unique deer encounter which could have turned out very badly.

It was on Route 2 in Montana before turning south for Billings and was getting towards twilight. One lane each way on a long straight, which is pretty common in eastern Montana. I was going east, and a SUV was coming west, with a big rig following behind about 15-20 car lengths. Speed limit was 65, I was doing 68 on cruise control.

Though there were low trees on the other side of the road, I was able to easily see 3 deer approaching the road in a line. I started braking and flashed my lights 3 times about 1/4 second after I saw the deer. I was easily able to stop about 20-25 feet from the line of three deer that entered the road shortly before I finished stopping. I didn't really stop but kept rolling until I was closer and stopped maybe 10 feet away.

The SUV came to a hard Anti-Lock stop just before almost hitting the first deer to cross. It kept crossing in front of me to the other side...as did the next deer, which stopped in my lane and turned around and went back in front of the SUV. The 3rd deer also stopped in front of the SUV. Meanwhile...the Semi is still coming and braking hard as well.

All this was happening in slow motion as soon as I saw the deer, and I somehow had the presence of mind to stomp on the accelerator and pull as close to the shoulder as possible without going off the road.

The Semi pulled into my lane as soon as he could and didn't come to a stop until most of his truck had gone by the SUV.