The record is 1-1. We got a deer, and a deer got us.
But really, it feels like we’re 0-2.
My wife hit a deer with her car last year. It was a doe, one of several that tried to cross the road early one school-day morning last November. The car in front of her got one, and she got another.
That was a few months after another deer – an average-sized buck – hit our car. He raced out into the street late one evening, ran headlong into the rear passenger door, bounced off and disappeared into the darkness.
Several thousand dollars in damages later, we’re hoping we won’t encounter any more whitetails on the roads for a while.
But the odds aren’t necessarily in our favor.
State Farm, the insurance company, each year puts out a report detailing deer-vehicle collision data. It ranked Pennsylvania fourth nationally in 2015 in terms of the likelihood of hitting a deer while behind the wheel. The odds of hitting a deer this year are 1 in 70.
By comparison, the national average is 1 in 169.
Want a figure that really puts that in perspective, though? According to State Farm, 10 percent of all deer-vehicle collisions that occur nationally happen right here in Pennsylvania.
The peak time for accidents is fast approaching, too.
According to the company’s data, November is the worst month for collisions, with October second.
That would make sense. The rut, or deer breeding season, peaks in November in Pennsylvania each year, and throughout fall there are hunters wandering the woods. All of that means deer on the move.
Stay alert. We’ll try to. We don’t want to go 0-3.
