A man driving to work along the M1 Princes Motorway at West Wollongong narrowly avoided a collision with a herd of deer spread across all the lanes.
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This comes just days after a report showed there have been 107 crashes in the Illawarra involving feral deer between 2005-17.
Fortunately, only one of these collisions resulted in a fatality – but Dapto’s Robby Roberts reckoned he narrowly escaped being the second.
“I only stopped about 10 metres away from them, if that,” Mr Roberts said.
“They could have caused a major accident, it could have killed me.”
On June 27 this year, Mr Roberts was travelling to his job on the night shift at Flemington Markets.
At around 1.30am he passed under the Mt Keira Road overpass heading north and crested the hill.
READ MORE: CWA demand urgent deer cull
Suddenly he saw in his headlights as many as 15 deer spread across all three northbound lanes – just a few kilometres from the city’s CBD.
“As I started to come up over the hill, I must have scared them a bit because they all started to move back over to the left-hand side and some started to scatter up to the on ramp,” Mr Roberts said.
He was forced to brake sharply and felt he could have easily been rear-ended by a car travelling behind him in the centre lane who hadn’t seen the deer.
That car moved to the right-hand lane and passed the deer, but Mr Roberts had to come to a dead stop.
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“I just put my foot on the brakes,” he said. “It shocked me a little bit, I had a bit of the goosebumps on me.”
With his nerves on edge because of how close he came to a serious accident, Mr Roberts took two shaky images of the deer – because he felt that no one would believe him otherwise.
“You wouldn’t expect to see deer running around on the main road,” Mr Roberts said.
“They’re probably coming down from the mountains to get some food because of the dry weather.”
It’s not the first time he’s had a near miss.
About a year ago he said he almost rolled his car on the F6 at Helensburgh while trying to avoid a stag in the middle of the road.
Another time, he was travelling to work as a passenger in his brother’s car and spotted a deer on the road heading up Mt Ousley.
Mr Roberts said it was time something was done to control the feral deer population.
“I think they need to be culled,” he said.
“Something really needs to be done about it because it’s only a matter of time before something serious happens.
“When you’re doing 100km/h and one comes through the windscreen they can do a lot of damage.”
Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
