Deer Warning Ms. Outdoors

Deer Warning Sheila Ogle

Increased deer activity can be a road hazard for drivers. Motorists beware! Fall, changing weather, natural deer activity and hunters in the woods mean one thing. Deer are on the move. Frequently deer cross onto busy roads while evading pursuit or chasing after their natural urge to survive.

In the past two weeks, deer fatality statistics have been on television and on the radio. Drivers are seeing more deer during daylight and early evening hours. As drivers, we will begin to see more and more, dead deer on the roadside. We will automatically begin to watch for this seasonal whitetail danger. The damage to autos and loss of lives are very costly. Vigilant drivers can sometimes avoid this type of fatal accident.

Understanding the reason for this danger helps drivers know where to be especially wary of deer crossings. Low valleys may present deer crossing hazards as well as narrow points of timber on either side of the roadway. These types of landscape offer deer the most cover as they cross onto exposed or open roads.

Deer forage for food primarily in the late evening and through all hours of the night. The most active feeding time for deer overlaps into low visibility and dark driving conditions for drivers. While this is an issue in every season, fall is understandably the most active time for deer. Farmers cut crops, harvesting much of the field fodder deer depend on for cover and food. Hunters appear amid deer territory and leave human scent everywhere. These are just two more reasons that deer are on the move more so this time of year than any other.

A not so obvious shift into the nighttime danger zone follows immediately after the fall time change. Consider the clock turned back one hour as drivers begin their late evening commute. This sudden time change inundates the roads an hour before sunset. Picture the weather much cooler on fall evenings. Deer are beginning to move a bit earlier in the evening and as the rut, kicks in they could move at any time day or night. The shortened days following the fall time change, eventually brings sunset sooner in the evening. Due to the recent time change, more drivers are on the road during the time when deer are sometimes moving across roadways.

Warning devices do little to deter deer from the roadway. In the eighties, a new fangled whistling device was a popular mail order item for the driver to install on a vehicle. The idea was to use the shrill air-venting whistle for alerting deer to the approach of vehicles.

In the seventies, Colorado did expensive studies to evaluate the effect of roadway lighting to increase the visibility for drivers and deer alike. Nighttime collision statistics and number of deer tracks fell under consideration in an effort to reduce deer to vehicle collisions and accidents through use of lighted roadways. Effects of vehicle speed, number of deer crossing these areas and the total deer to vehicle crash ratios were contrast against use of roadway lighting and lack of roadway lighting. Results of the varying number of deer tracks in each specific deer crossing area showed it difficult to see a clear pattern in all of the study results. The traffic and the lighting were different as were the deer numbers and the exact crossing on any given night. With or without the study lighted deer crossings obviously illuminate approaching deer to an alert driver. Knowledge is the best defense. Keeping an alert eye for the possibility of deer crossing the roadway is an excellent way to avoid an accident. Deer may not happen to cross at the designated lighted section of the roadway. Be ready for the unexpected deer on the roadway at all times.

Common ground on this issue is the fact that most drivers have had deer in the headlights at one time or another. In the moment a vehicle meets a deer on the road, lives can be lost. In the contest between people and animal drivers can choose to save human life.

Decide how you will react before you find yourself in a potential life threatening accident. The first mistake drivers make when they encounter any wildlife on the roadway is swerving to avoid the animal. Many times this mistake will cause a collision with oncoming traffic or cause the driver to leave the roadway completely. Choose to avoid an uncontrolled swerve into oncoming traffic or off the pavement completely by choosing to hit the deer.

Keeping the vehicle between the lines takes a determined presence of mind. Prepare your mind now and understand that if you cross that line your life and the life of the oncoming driver and all passengers are likely lost.