Iowa drivers are always supposed to stay vigilant for hazards but it’s especially important at this time of the year when deer are more active — and more plentiful. Dan McGehee (mah-GHEE-hee), director of the Driving Safety Research Institute at the University of Iowa, says part of the problem is deer have fewer places to hide as the harvest has left most of the state’s cornfields cleaned out. In addition to being more panicked, those deer are frisky.
The Iowa Department of Transportation says the state recorded more than 73-hundred animal-related car crashes last year, which resulted in five deaths and about a dozen serious injuries. McGehee says the majority of deaths and injuries involving deer happen in Iowa’s rural areas.
Iowans hear the mantra “Don’t veer for deer” repeated continually. McGehee admits, it’s difficult to avoid the reflex to try and swerve away from a threat, but veering to miss a deer could put you into oncoming traffic or the ditch.
As traumatic as striking an animal can be, he says swerving can cause you to lose control, a rollover, or to collide with another vehicle or roadside object. Even if no one in the car is hurt in such a crash, it can be very expensive to hit a deer. A recent insurance company study found the average repair cost from such a collision to be between five- and six-thousand dollars.
The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration ranks Iowa number-six in the country in the high likelihood category for animal collisions.
