Bambi may be cute. But on the road, he and his kin can be kill.

Cary Toomey knows about this all to well. Sunday afternoon he was driving on Van Dorn Street when his vehicle collided at 50 miles per hour with a deer in the middle of the road.

"I didn't even know I hit a deer until right at the last second," Toomey said. "I didn't even see it. It just popped out of the ditch so fast, there was nothing I could do."

He and his two young sons were wearing seat belts. Instead of swerving, Toomey hit the deer straight on, something Terry Wagner a Lancaster County Sheriff said was key to their walking away alive and unharmed.

"If you swerve to the right, you could roll over into a ditch," Wagner said. "If you swerve to the left, there could be oncoming traffic so you could be putting yourself and others in more danger than just hitting the breaks, grabbing the wheel, making sure you're buckled in and hitting the object in front of you."

Wagner said there have been 365 car-deer accidents since January 1, 2008. That's double last year's 182 during the same time period. Injuries from these accidents have also increased from eight through November 10 of last year, to 13 so far this year.

Wagner said drivers should slow down and be prepared if they see deer along the side of the road.

"They are a pack animal and they move in herds", Wagner said. "So if you see one, there's a good chance you're going to see more."

Toomey's accident caused an estimated $8,000 in damage to his car. He said he thinks it will likely be totaled by his insurance appraiser.

According to a nationwide study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, insurance claims for crashes with animals are three times higher in November than they are from January to September, due to the fact that the whitetail rut is taking place. The study also found that 60% of people killed during a collision involving a vehicle and animal were not wearing a seat belt.

Toomey said from now on he'll drive slower in heavily forested areas. But for now he's counting his blessings that it was just the deer and the car that took the beating and that he and his little boys walked away alive.

"I was just amazing how the front end just exploded," Toomey said. "I consider myself fortunate that everyone ended up healthy and nobody got hurt."