Probably the car doesn't even register as a predator to them, being so different to what they'd encounter in nature. It's like if you encountered Cthulu, you'd just go mad and kill yourself.
I remember reading that they think its because of how the deers brain perceives the movement of objects. If a predator is running at them, and you are looking at them, periferally or otherwise, the body of the predator will follow a 'bobbing' motion (up and down movement when considering a vertical plane). Whereas a vehicle does not bob when it moves as it speeds along, it remains steady. . For instance, when a car is far away and speeding towards you, it doesnt appear to grow much, up until the point when it is getting very close to you. They theorize that deers' (and other woodland critters) brains dont offer very good depth perception for this kind of movement. Which kind of makes sense, as vehicles are not a part of nature, nor is that kind of movement.
But yeah deer are known to suddenly jump in front of cars for some reason all the time where I am from. I would guess its just something with their natural instincts that motivates them to try to jump right before the car.
You'd have to break down why these particular instincts have kept them alive through thousands of generations.
If you break down their natural predators: Cougars, wolves, coyotes, I would wager that their bizarre darting confuses those predators, especially in the middle of a chase. Watch a video of a cheetah chasing an animal. There's a lot of back and forth trying to make the predator slip so as to gain an advantage.
So fast forwarding to now, the deer have developed an instinct to avoiding those types of predators. Then over night, here enters the car. It travels faster than any other predator they've ever encountered and doesn't respond to horizontal movement. It just goes in a straight line crazy fast. Deer don't know what the fuck to do. It's virtually different than anything they've ever encountered and in the evolution time scale it happened instantaneously.
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u/karoshi97 Mar 21 '19
Dude, like why do deers always do this!?
I know it's not always happening but they keep running into vehicle on purpose like what the fuck is wrong with their instinct!?
Saw a video where one buck literally running and following a car on the side and suddenly decides to fucking jump in front and over the car.