The driver was heading down a country road on Thursday evening near the French-Belgian border when he almost hit the deer. The driver swerved to avoid hitting the animal, lost the control of his vehicle and crashed into a ditch. 

The driver was unharmed. But the police officers and firemen who rushed to the site were bemused. The deer was still there, bumbling across the road. They surrounded him in the central reservation on the road and noticed the deer clearly seemed under the weather – stumbling and disoriented. 

It later emerged the deer was drunk after consuming one too many spring buds – a common cause of deer inebriation in spring.

“Deer eat large quantities of buds that make them intoxicated,” an official from the National Office of wildlife and hunting told daily La Voix du Nord, “So they display symptoms of being drunk.”

At this time of the year, bud-eating deer in the northern town of La Capelle tend to lose their inhibitions. They are frequently found frolicking in private properties, parks and housing estates.