DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour  

When one lives in places like Michigan, Indiana or Illinois there’s always a high number of accidents involving vehicles running into deer, and vice versa. There’s nothing like plowing into a 400-pound animal at 60 miles per hour on a totally dark highway to eradicate any need for caffeine to keep you awake.

I’ve done it and when you start discussing the subject with people the numbers who have also experienced it are astronomical. I’ve always been enamored at the sheer magnificence of a deer, especially when catching the rare sight of a stag proudly displaying a rack of horns. However, it seems that about the only time to catch sight of a stag (or “buck” as they’re also known) is on one of those yellow, diamond-shaped warning signs that indicate a deer crossing.

Which leads me to the gist of this column; has anyone ever seen a deer anywhere near one of those posted signs?

As an aside, different parts of the country have different images of animals to look out for; some have moose, cattle, children (or other small critters), etc. I suspect in Japan they have the same kind of signs with Godzilla, Rodan and all the other monsters germane to that island nation.

What do all those signs have in common? You guess it, Herbie; few people have ever seen whatever is depicted by the warning sign anywhere NEAR the sign. Supposedly those signs are erected at areas where a large number of whatevers have been sighted. “By whom,” I ask, “recovering alcoholics and hippies crashing from an LSD trip?” If a sign is supposed to be planted near repeated sightings then the roads of Michigan would be one solid mass of yellow diamonds. But I’ll say this, Gretchen: they are seldom, if ever near where they’re supposed to be.

What makes this so problematic is the initial tendency to slow down when viewing one of the signs because of what it signifies. However, if one did that, the start and stop motion from slowing down to witness nothing but an open road and accelerating again would cause motion sickness to the point of projectile vomiting.

On the other hand, if signs were put up at every place a deer has been sighted it would be like a visual assault of Burma Shave signs. (For those too young to know what a Burma Shave sign is…go up to your room and do your homework!)

I once heard a “Dumb Blonde” joke about this woman wondering how deer learned to read to know where it’s safe for them to cross the street. As “deeply thoughtful” as this question is it makes one wonder that if animals — deer in particular — can really read then why DON’T they cross where indicated? I think it’s because they’re rebellious creatures by habit and don’t play by conventional rules.

But deer aren’t alone. Once I was in Alaska for a driving program Toyota was putting on for its Tacoma pickup trucks. The woman who was heading for the airport from our resort to pick us up about mid-day was driving down the main highway and rounded a curve in the road when BAM! She hit a bear right in the ass. It took out the entire right-front fender of the minivan but the bear apparently shrugged off the pain and ran into the woods. What good would a sign have done in that instance?

I can understand the theory behind putting up signs to warn motorists about a heavy possibility of an animal possibly lurking around so be careful lest he run out in front of you and ruin BOTH your days. But by that standard there should also be warning signs placed EVERYWHERE that depict birds flying overhead and little black dots flowing from them towards the image of cars and pedestrians walking below.

Carrying it one step further…and closer to the absurd…there should have been signs in the 1943-1945 time frame throughout Germany that shows images of B-17s and bombs raining down on unsuspecting buildings and pedestrians. OR…in August, 1945, a sign outside the outskirts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki of a mushroom cloud, painted in nothing but day-glow orange. 

I can’t stress enough that it’s about time perfectly good iron ore has to stop giving its life for wasted efforts trying to warn humans about the possibility of impending danger, no matter how well-intentioned it may be. Personally, I would hate to be a hunk of ore that has been waiting millions of years for my calling, only to have myself thrown into a blazing-hot furnace and molded into a diamond-shaped sign and placed alongside a spot on an interstate highway, only to witness a driver glancing my way to read my message and unnoticed by him is a football-sized meteor that is about to plow into his car door.

To paraphrase a comedy mantra by Bill Engvall of Blue Collar Comedy fame, “Where’s your sign?”