States Seek to Curb Deer-Related Crashes

Dead deer, such as this one is shown April 5, 2006, along a highway near Enning, S.D., are a common sight for motorists. Deer account for one out of every three crashes in the state and plague drivers across the nation. (AP Photo/Joe Kafka) (Joe Kafka - AP)

PIERRE, S.D. -- As long as cars have been around, drivers have had to contend with deer on the roads. And despite their best efforts, experts have yet to devise an economical, surefire way of preventing accidents.

Not that they haven't been trying.

Fences, whistles, warning signs and guns are just some of the tools that have been used to try to keep the number of deer-related traffic accidents to a minimum.

There are no official nationwide statistics on deer-related crashes, but the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates there are 1.5 million deer-related traffic accidents in the U.S. each year, resulting in $1.1 billion in vehicle damages.

State Farm Insurance Co., the nation's largest car insurer, began tracking deer-crash data in 2002 and also estimates 1.5 million vehicles collide with deer annually.

Pennsylvania, with its heavily wooded areas and dense population, has one of the highest numbers of deer-related crashes, with about 35,000 deer carcasses removed from state roads annually, according to a state transportation official. Other states with large numbers of deer-related crashes are Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, Virginia, Indiana, Texas and Wisconsin.

Most occur in either the spring, when deer are most likely to be on the move at dusk and dawn, and during the fall mating season.

Even in sparsely populated South Dakota, where road traffic is typically light, one out of every three crashes involves deer. And about 200 people die each year nationwide from deer-vehicle accidents.

In Minnesota, roadside sensors near a state park activate flashing lights on signs to warn drivers when deer are detected. The pilot project began this spring, and early results look good, said Bob Weinholzer of the Minnesota Transportation Department.

"We can't do anything to control what the deer do, so this is an attempt to control the drivers," he said.

Before the project's inception, an average of one deer a week was killed in traffic accidents on the 1-mile stretch of highway where the detection system was set up. But during its first six weeks in operation, only one deer was killed, Weinholzer said.

"We don't know yet if it works. All we know so far is that it's promising," he said.