Steps provided in comment, analysis in the subsequent comment.
I have several automatic minecart stations. Upon arrival the minecart strikes a cactus and is sucked into a hopper beneath the rail. At least that's how it used to work. The minecart is now deflecting in a seemingly random direction (right or left) and missing the hopper.
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Could you put blocks to the sides of the rail to stop the deflection?

Thank you for your report!
However, this issue has been temporarily closed as Awaiting Response
Is this still an issue in the latest version? If so, can you please add it to the affected versions (or mention it if you are not the reporter).
Also, just a reminder, to make your bug report as effective as possible, please try and include the following steps to reproduce the problem:
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1. dig a hole and place a hopper.
2. Put minecart track on top of hopper
3. plant cactus directly behind hopper (put slab on top)
4. lay enough track with activated power rail to reach max minecart speed.
5. Get in minecart and launch
observed result: you are dismounted and minecart ends up left or right of hopper most of the time
expected result: you are dismounted and minecard ends up in hopper.
edit: Yes, still an issue in latest hotfix

Demonstration:
[media]
This is caused by the minecart item entity receiving random momentum upon creation. Sometimes the random momentum also causes the minecart item to be destroyed (MCPE-94879).
However, regardless of the random momentum, the problem reported here would not even exist if hoppers were to check the entire block space above when collecting items, as they do in Java Edition. Hoppers in Bedrock only search up 0.75 blocks above for items (MCPE-55824). The reason the random momentum is able to throw items off to the side (or into the cactus itself) is because the items spawn near the top of the block, above the search range of hoppers.
That being the case, you can work around this bug by embedding a hopper minecart in the block in front of the cactus, as shown here:
[media]

Still happening in 1.17.30. Some minecarts are captured by the hopper, while others are apparently destroyed when they touch the cactus, and occasionally one just lands on a block beside the rails.