They’re waiting for you
So do be careful driving out there
THE NEWS story didn’t make the front page. It didn’t have to. It was one of those items that just leaps out at you, like the danger it describes. It included a number that stood out like a blinking Caution light: Twenty-five thousand. That’s how many Arkansas drivers the insurance companies’ actuaries estimate will hit a deer on the road—this season alone. And you thought you just had to look out for people text-driving.
This is the romantic time of the year for deer, so they’re moving around more, sometimes running down highways and interstates. There’s something else keeping the deer hopping this time of year: those ominous interlopers, the strange-smelling predators who do their stalking in the deer woods, carrying their strange weapons and arrayed in hunter’s orange. It doesn’t help that the time change has more people driving home from work closer to dark. Or after night has fallen.
According to those who keep up with these things at State Farm, drivers in Arkansas have a 1-in-107 chance of hitting a deer—or what State Farm calls deer-car “confrontations.” In the impersonal spirit of this data-driven age, that’s the term used for what can be a highly personal business—also nasty, bloody, even fatal. And not just for the deer.
Last month, a 16-year-old girl was hurt when her car struck a deer on a busy street near Arkansas State University, which must have been an educational experience indeed. A police officer in Jonesboro hit a deer while patrolling in a residential neighborhood. And last year, we spotted three deer running down Bamboo Lane in a family neighborhood near Jacksonville. In the daytime. Darting between the houses, the kids walking to school, and, yes, the cars. The people who’ve run the Game and Fish Commission these last few decades have managed the deer population exceptionally well. So well that hunters have plenty of chances to get a deer. Unfortunately, so do drivers.
Moral of the story: Watch out and slow down these November-December days.
Another travel tip: Deer travel in groups. So don’t watch the pretty doe that you just saw cross the road as she trots into the woods, or you might hit the one right behind her. Just because one danger has passed doesn’t mean it’s the only one to watch for.