They’re hot to trot this time of year, and that means trouble for motorists:
On average, 2 million deer-vehicle collisions occur yearly, costing more than $4 billion in vehicle damage. About 5% of those collisions involve human injury, and sometimes deaths. Most of those collisions happen in November because deer are on the move, looking for a hook-up. As days get shorter, male testosterone production increases. Fall is rut season, and male deer roam widely in search of females. If you’re driving at dusk or dawn in November, you’re on a Highway to the Danger Zone: the majority of deer collisions happen this month. The average cost of a deer-vehicle collision is $8,388, and $30,773 for a moose-vehicle collision.
Updates from several readers:
The deer are crazy plentiful in San Antonio. The key to avoiding a deer car collision is to head straight for them.
This seems counterintuitive, but remember that the deer don’t understand evasive maneuvers, and swerving can result in something akin to a greeting between two different cultures you spoke of earlier. Deer are just trying to run away and if you maintain a course right at them they will usually get away unscathed.
Sometimes they will run right into the side of your car. I don’t get that at all, but knock wood that has never happened to me. The city should hire a task of bow hunters to kill some of the deer and put the meat into the food bank.
Another reminds us that “Louis CK hates deer”:
Another reader:
This post pretty much requires me to share one of my favorite anecdotes on the topic. My significant other is from a small town in Northern, WI. There is one big feeder high school up there that all the “nearby” communities send their kids to and which she graduated from several years ago. Every fall up there, the entire student body apparently knew exactly when that year’s driver’s ed class reached this important and (especially there in Northern Wisconsin) life-saving lesson in surviving a deer-car collision because of the memorable manner chosen by the instructor in order to drill it into the students’ heads. Specifically, on that day of the curriculum, the driver’s ed students could be heard throughout the school, in every hallway and classroom, as they chanted at the top of their lungs the following simple, memorable phrase, over and over: “Hit the damn deer! Hit the damn deer!”
Another did:
Funny, I saw that post literally 10 seconds after I got this photo from a friend – the collision was last night. Thankfully, all the people are OK.
(Photo by Fabrice Florin)
The Dish 