By Emery Styron

Which is better — to hit a deer with your car, or to swerve and miss it? To tell the truth to the insurance company, or to fudge a bit?

Garrett’s sporty Cougar is jaunty no more.These questions come to mind after a recent near miss between my grandson Garrett’s 1999 Mercury Cougar and a deer in the wee hours on a country lane.

When I called in the accident, the insurance adjuster noted there was comprehensive coverage on the car, but no collision. “Did he hit the deer?” he asked.

“He said he didn’t,” I told him. The adjuster quickly confirmed my fears: comprehensive covers damage to the car caused by hitting a deer, but does not cover damage caused by avoiding a deer. He agreed to look hard for deer fur when he examined the car. He didn’t find any.

“Maybe I should have hit the deer,” Garrett said.

Maybe. In that case, there would be comprehensive coverage, but there might be a medical payments claim, too. Chances are the air bags would have gone off, injuring Garrett if he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. If the deer came through the windshield, who knows what kind of injury that would have caused.

As it stands, Garrett will have to spend $400 to get the car driveable, then some more to patch up the body damage. It would take $2,500 to make it look as good as it was before. That’s big money for a college freshman, so he’ll probably be driving a Cougar bandaged with sheet metal and duct tape.

The car will be hard to look at, but I think the alternatives are worse. A car can be replaced, but a healthy body can’t and a soiled conscience is hard to ever get clean.