Its mainly their weight going through a windshield (and it gets that high because they are jumping, and their bodies have the weight, not their legs), or swerving to miss them. But you knew that.
Yeah I figured. That reminds me of a story. When I was 10 or 11, we all went to Maine to see my mother's family because she was about to go into surgery to remove a brain tumor. It was night time and my mother had her seat unbuckled to turn around and give something to my sister (donuts from the rest stop I think) and she turned around and clicked her seat belt in and BAM! I was the first to come to. The lights of the car were out. The horn was blaring, and the windshield was in my moms face. I yelled "mom!" and shook her shoulder. That "mom!" seemed to snap my dad back to reality and he came to. We hit a moose. They're top heavy so the main mass of it hit the windshield. They're bigger than a Roo so it didn't go through the windshield. It was a mess. I remember me and my siblings trying to cover my mom on the side of the road with any pillows or blankets we could find to keep her warm as my dad tried to wave someone down to get an ambulance. We kept trying to talk to her and make sure she didn't fall asleep. Later on at the hospital I was holding my mom's hand as the nurses picked glass out of her face and neck. The lead nurse didn't see me come in and as she was turning to put some glass in the bedpan she saw me and was shocked.
"Uh, you're not afraid of blood are you?" She asked.
My smart ass self replied "Bit late to ask me that now." The other nurses snickered.
The car was totaled, my mom recovered but has no memory of anything that happened after we left the rest area. Our grandmother drove me and my siblings back down to DC and took care of us for a few days while my mom and dad stayed in Maine so she could recover and deal with the fallout of everything with insurance. I remember having to give a statement for insurance purposes and my dad was very curious why I shouted mom when I came too. I explained that I saw the windshield in her face and all the blood and was worried about her. I think he was a bit jealous I wasn't worried about him but I may be reading into it a bit. He had a big gash on his shoulder from shattered glass (still has the scar to this day). My sister had a piece of glass in her eye and my brother had glass dust in his. I came out unscathed. For a good 5 years or so if we ever made the trip again, my dad's family would jokingly ask if we bagged another moose.
