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Thankfully, you're still here to share that bit of wisdom Mac! Sounds like it could have been a whole lot worse for you. I guess I'm a little bit curious about the fate of the Jeep's occupant(s).
We share similar habitat and I'll offer another tip. If you're cruising along and see a deer, bear or moose running across the road, don't allow your eyes to follow it. Many times there will be another coming up from behind and that'll be the one you don't see until it's too late. I always look the the side of the road that they just came from and it's payed off for both me and the critters.
The Jeep's occupants, in this particular case were fine, shaken but fine. 2 males i didn't know of course, City dwellers from manchester . The jeep was a hard top Cherokee, a guess about 95/97 vintage. What saved these guys was the air bags failed to go off. Other wise they probably would be dead.
I have heard from officers of the law, that what most often happens in suv's of this type, is at the near to same time as the roof is coming down, the occupants are thrown forward into the exploding air bags, which shove the occupants back hard. In the posture resulting from the instant stop, not near instant stop, but a Right Now fast stop 50 to 0 in a split second fast, occupants most often tend to die for a severe broken neck.
The rate a vehical stops at when hitting a moose isn't exactly easy to discribe, people don't understand. You may as well hit a 20 ton concrete block. Except the block won't pop up in the air and land on the roof.
Me: I live here full time, have a long time. Way back I didn't see mosse either, they were there I just couldn't see them. In time I learned how to see them. Where i do see them, I make a mental note and and give or take 5 miles in either direction at might on a motorcycle I have some rules, which did save me and my wife but not my fender.
In moose country I scan both sides of the road and slow down. I don't really need to see the road, and don't get with in what I guess is 12 seconds close to a car. I need to make that 15 seconds. have really.
AT NIGHT Moose quarter the road 'away' from on coming lights. What this does exactly is point every long guard hair the moose has straight at the lights and then there is 0 reflection. The hairs suck up all light like a black hole in space.
I look for the dark spot at night a place where it is darker than average light. If there is on coming cars I look for these lights to blink.
At night following, I don't worry about my light, I watch to both sides of the vehical before me, and that night I caught a refelection as if a flock of crows were taking flight. That instant I knew Moose and was on the brakes hard, so hard my tires were screeching, and that was before the jeep hit the moose. Over my tires I heard the thump. I knew what that was. My wife yelled whats wrong I yelled moose.
Crows are not eatting road kill after dark, never seen that happen before. and so anything odd after dark is moose.
There are exceptions of course and the one that causes me the worst fear for nothing is 2 people walking, that cause light to blink. I react the same way braking, until I have IDed it's 2 people walking, which is typical, sometimes 1 persons can creat the same type of blink a Mosse does too.
Either way to me there is a possible threat and something I do not want to hit.
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