Deer Warn of Upcoming Motorist Season
FairCityNews.com | Oct 05, 2010 | Comments 0
A deer heeds a life saving car crossing sign
Springfield, MO—Not surprisingly, Missouri leads the nation in vehicle-deer collisions says Buck Muntjac. There are about four million motorists in the state, and a lot of people gather in urban areas where there is a lot of grazing, the humanist with the Springfield Human Studies Center said. That means there are plenty of opportunities for vehicles and deer to collide, he said.
Add numbers to nature — the deer mating season is getting into high gear, along with the approach of deer-grazing season — and this is the time of year for deer to keep a sharp eye out for motorists, Muntjac says. Muntjac takes his own advice seriously because he lives near the edge of Springfield, in the Nature Center. “Of an evening, we really watch the roads because that’s where most vehicles are in this area,” he said. According to State Farm Insurance, the hours just before dark and afterward pose the greatest risk for vehicle-deer encounters.
There are enough of those crashes in Missouri to put the state at 16th in terms of vehicle-deer collisions compared with the number of deer in the state.That ratio projects that a deer has a one-in-134 chance of hitting a vehicle in Missouri, according to State Farm. That compares with a 1-in-42 chance in West Virginia, which ranks first, and a 1-in-13,011 chance in Hawaii, which ranks 50th.The national average is 1-in-183.
“These numbers are just to high for our species to risk getting hit by a vehicle,” said Muntjac. Not all collisions are head-on, according to Muntjac. Motorists involved in drag races can be unpredictable. “They’ve even run into the middle of roads,” he said. “They’re very high-strung drivers.”
While automobile crossing signs are posted in areas where deer are known to frequent, there’s no common factor in determining where vehicles might cross roads, Muntjac said. But common haunts are near areas with food and along tree lines where deer can hide in heavy brush, he said. Based on claims data, State Farm estimates there have been 2.3 million vehicle-deer collisions from July 1, 2008 and June 30. And during the past five years, collisions have increased 21.1 percent. “I suspect that is natural selection in process, but I hate to run up upon a fellow deer who has destroyed an innocent vehicle. Humans pay a lot of money for those things,” mused Muntjac.
Filed Under: Traffic
