There are so many whitetail deer hit on the roads by me that we have a guy whose job it is to drive around in a big pickup truck with an old wooden bed on the back of it and he just goes up and down all the main roads and picks up deer that were hit and left on the side of the road. I see him multiple times a week and his truck bed always has a lot in it!
You know it's bad when it becomes a full-time job for someone to clean up this mess! We'll talk about what I think the solution could be at the end, but for right now let's talk about the problem of them being on the road and getting hit.
People die every year from deer accidents. In my home state of Pennsylvania there was over 5,848 accidents caused by deer in 2022 alone! Of those, 1264 people were injured and 9 were killed! That's in just one year according to PennDot and this website!
Peak time for adult deer collisions with vehicles is October till December. There's a bit of a spike in May also when the fawns are born and grass starts growing on roadways.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there are approximately 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions in the United States each year, resulting in about 150 deaths and over $1 billion in vehicle damage. Details here!
It's very dangerous to hit a deer. They can do a lot of damage to both the car and the people in it! On average they cause $4,000 in damage per accident, but many times they total the car! An adult whitetail buck weighs about 125 lbs. An adult doe weighs about 100 lbs.
Obviously it's best to just avoid hitting them...but it's not that easy and today we're going to talk about some of the tips and tricks I've learned from living in the woods on how to avoid hitting deer.
How to avoid hitting deer with your vehicle
First of all you need to really be paying attention and constantly scanning the edges of the road for wild animals. You knew that part though. You should always use your headlights and switch to high beams as much as possible at night. Often times the first glimpse you get of any animal will be the headlights reflecting in their eyes and high beams reach further from your vehicle.
Look for deer crossing signs and make a mental note where you see deer frequently then use extreme caution in these areas! Obviously I don't know how it works everywhere, but you can request deer crossing sign placement where I live if its an area deer get hit often, so if somebody requested the sign there's a reason.
There's a big bend in my road where deer cross constantly. I don't think I've taken that bend at full speed in at least 10 years because I know there will probably be a deer there at night! There's also enough brush and trees to give them some cover during the day, so I'm always careful there.
Deer are creatures of habit and hunters track them by following trails they use regularly. Same goes for roads. Deer tend to cross roads in the same places all the time. They obviously don't look for the signs to cross so they can be anywhere, but take the signs as notice that there's a bigger chance of seeing deer in that area.
When the deer population is this bad, I try to avoid driving after dark as much as possible. When it's absolutely necessary to drive in the dark, I tend to stick to the speed limit or below. It's just not worth getting home 5 minutes faster if I hit an animal and have to spend the next few weeks running around fixing my car or worse yet hurt myself.
Plus I'm going to feel sad for the animal and feel guilty even if there was nothing I could do! It's better to just slow down.
When you do see a deer you'll want to immediately slow down, but check your surroundings real quick that you won't get hit from behind from slowing too quickly! On the back roads I will go all the way down to maybe 5-10 miles an hour and basically crawl past the deer.
I also will pull over and let other drivers pass me if it's dark so I don't have to worry about them being behind me in case I have to stop suddenly! I especially do this in the rain because headlights reflect on water making it harder to see any animal's eyes reflecting your headlights.
I'm probably going overboard, but I haven't had any deer hits since I started taking all these precautions. That's down from the 1 a year I was dealing with when we first moved here!
Once they realize you are there the deer will usually make an effort to avoid you, but when you're going too fast they don't see you in time and they panic. By going slow it gives them time to get out of your way or to realize you're coming so they will stop and not cross in front of you.
Also if they do that freeze thing 'like a deer in headlights' they will eventually snap out of it and start moving and if you're going too fast still, you might hit them anyway.
Also by you slowing down it makes them less likely to panic and keeps them from bolting into other peoples cars. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a deer dart across the road and as I got closer here comes another one! Or the first one comes back, which leads me to the next point.
Do not swerve around the deer! It seems like you could just dodge the deer and keep going but trust me the deer will turn around and smash straight into you. It's not a rock, it won't stay still for long!
Not to mention they usually travel in groups. So if you dodge one you might go right into the path of another. As mentioned earlier your best bet is to slow down and basically crawl past them.
Once you see the deer has crossed the road it's safe to move through slowly, but be aware that sometimes there's a straggler on the side of the road that is hesitating and will choose the exact wrong time to dart in front of you. Again if you can go really slow, you can avoid hitting them.
Also if you try to swerve around them it can confuse them and cause the herd to scatter in which case one will most definitely run towards you!
It's important to note that police statistics show the majority of motorist death and injury is caused when a driver swerves to miss a deer and hit a fixed object like a guardrail, tree, telephone pole or hits another vehicle! Check RoadAndTrack for more info!
Don't think you can beat the deer because it seems like you're going faster than he is and he'll see you and turn around. That never happens. Just when you think you can go past him sometimes they pick up speed. I hate to use the words 'they have a death wish' but it really seems like it's sometimes.
Do not speed up after the deer crosses the road in front of you unless you are past him. They sometimes turn around and come back.
My last deer accident the deer ran in front of my truck and he was pretty far away, but I slowed down while he cleared the road then I sped back up. He suddenly turned around and ran right into the side of my truck. All I could do was sit there and be like "Why'd you come back???" He ran off so maybe he just bumped his head?
Also, if you have to hit something and it's a choice between a dear or other wildlife and an object with a fixed place, choose the deer. First of all deer move when you hit them, trees, guardrails and buildings do not move when you hit them so the impact to you and your car is going to be worse! If you swerve into oncoming traffic and hit another car the collision can be fatal!
And I know you feel bad about hitting an animal, but is it worth putting people in the hospital for? Also, every time I've hit a deer insurance has sent an adjuster out and looked for proof that I hit the deer. They look for fur, blood and fur prints on your car.
I'm not sure the exact details and if all insurance companies do this, but I pay significantly less of a deductible for animal hits then I do if I just ran off the road into a guardrail.
No matter what you tell your insurance about why you swerved and hit a guardrail, it's probably going to make your insurance payment go up for a year or two if you hit a tree, telephone pole or other stagnant object because they consider that operator error. Deer fall under the category acts of God and they're considered unavoidable. My insurance has never gone up for hitting a deer.
Obviously I don't know all insurances as I've only dealt with a few over the course of my life, so if I screwed up that part let me know in the comments down below and I can fix things. It's always good to have new knowledge!
My final tip is to drive as close to the center of the road as possible while obeying traffic laws. This way you have space on either side of your vehicle to move over if a deer is suddenly in front of you.
If you drive in the right lane then the only place you have to go is the left lane because the guardrail or ditch in on your right. But if you're in the left lane of a 4 lane road, you can dodge right or left (if there's no oncoming traffic) if necessary.
Plus there's more warning when a deer runs on to the road since they have to cross at least one lane to even get to you. It just gives you an extra second to react but obviously only works when there aren't a lot of other cars on the road.
Many time the deer will just pop out of the woods and suddenly be on the road in front of you with no warning. In these cases all you can do is hit the breaks and try to avoid it, but you might not stop in time or it might run into you anyway. Sometimes they really are unavoidable.
I read somewhere that if a deer hit is inevitable to press your brakes as hard as possible till the very last second and let your foot off the brake immediately before impact. This will help push the deer forward rather than flip it up onto your hood. People die when deer come through the windshield, so it's worth a try!
Excuse the blurry picture but I took this in August of 2024 while driving on my road. We grow BIG bucks here! Antlers like that do a LOT of damage so avoiding an impact with them is the goal when driving around here! Click picture to enlarge.
How to fix deer overpopulation
What I really wish they'd do is encourage more doe harvesting. One doe will have a baby every year, so she effectively doubles herself. However, they often have twins and occasionally triplets. So one doe can turn into four deer. This happens every year and remember, those female fawns grow up to have more babies!
But when you take 1 doe out of the breeding population, that's it. No other doe can take her place because the others have their own place in the population. However if you take a buck out of the breeding population, another buck will simply take its place as one buck will impregnate multiple doe.
So when everybody's out there shooting deer just for the big trophy rack, they're not really helping the problem much. Take 3 does out of the population and next year that's 6 to 12 deer you won't have running around. Take out 3 bucks and next year that's 3 deer that won't be running around. It just makes sense to harvest more doe at least for a few years when things are this bad.
Now from what I understand both are the same as far as eating, however a doe would be slightly smaller. But then again, it depends on why you're hunting. Do you want meat or a trophy?
Would I say that a lot of hunting is wrapped in ego and many hunters care more about the trophy size than their freezer being full? Sometimes. And I definitely wish that would change. The reason for hunting should always be food, and I won't change my mind on that.
In Pennsylvania we also have Deer Management Assistance Program harvest permits which is a step in the right direction. However the coupons need applied for by the landowners and then the hunter takes that coupon to get the permit. It's tedious.
It could be more successful, but many people don't even know about the program! There are also several food banks that will accept deer meat and some hunters like to hunt just to donate which is a great way to enjoy hunting and make sure a lot of people benefit from it.
Now as it stands, hunters here are allowed 6 antlerless permits and 1 antlered permit for rifle season so one would think that should be enough to fix the problem, however nobody does that! I don't know one person who has ever got the full limit in doe. Or even tried!
Finally, the deer population has increased a lot in recent years and so has the incidences or Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The deer are tested through the brain stem or lymph nodes and if found to be positive the meat should not be consumed and it should be disposed of so other animals cannot consume it.
Unfortunately there is no way to test live animals and since not all the deer that are hunted are tested, we really have no idea how prevalent the incidences of CWD actually is, we just know how many had it out of the ones who were tested.
Currently there is no scientific evidence that CWD has or can spread to humans, however it is recommended that exposure to CWD be avoided. Hunters are advised to check when/where they get their deer tags to see if testing is recommended or if the local deer are considered generally safe to consume.
CWD is another reason why I believe we need a big hunting season as the disease spreads more quickly when the deer population is high. A smaller population would slow the spread.
Animals on the roads
Back to the driving though, living in the woods with all these wild animals can be challenging. Over the years two different times a deer ran into the passenger side of my truck.
Once I was almost past the deer who made it across the road and they turned back and ran into the passenger side door! The other ran into the corner of the front bumper. Another one ran into the drivers door on my husbands truck and yet another skidded to a stop but took out my drivers side mirror (that happened to my son too!)
Oh and it's not just deer! When we first moved to the woods a bear ran into the drivers side front wheel well on my SUV and an opossum cleared the road in front of me then ran back into the wheel of the car!
So these tips can be used for various wildlife. If I had stopped when I saw that bear running towards the road, we would not have collided! Stopping and/or slowing down is almost always your best defense.
Hopefully you'll never have to play dodge the deer while driving, but if you do knowing these tips and safety tricks can help you avoid a collision!
Related reading: Want to learn more about growing food in containers? Check out all my How to keep Deer OUT of your Garden!
~L
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