Deaths and Injuries
"Good national statistics don't exist on how many collisions
occur between deer and motor vehicles each year," reported the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in its April 3, 1993 (Vol.
28, No. 4) Status Report article called "Deer, Moose Collisions
with Motor Vehicles Peak in Spring and Fall." The article added,
"The estimate is hundreds of thousands." Michigan keeps
statistics on deer-vehicle collisions. According to the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources, there were 56,666 deer-vehicle
collisions in that state in 1994, and each year deer-vehicle
collisions in Michigan kill an average of five people and injure
1,500. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
estimated that animal-vehicle collisions in the United States
caused 120 vehicle-occupant deaths in 1991. According to the
National Safety Council in Chicago, deer-vehicle collisions
annually account for more than 100 motorist deaths and about
7,000 injuries. These collisions kill as many as 350,000 deer
each year.
Economic Costs
Death and injury costs of deer-vehicle collisions are high;
so are the economic costs. The National Highway Traffic
Administration's 1990 figures set the lifetime economic costs to
society of each traffic fatality at $702,000 and the average cost
for each critically injured person at $589,000. Conservatively
figured, the annual national cost in motorist loss of life and
injury from deer-vehicle collisions is almost $200 million. In
addition, the average cost of vehicle damage from hitting a deer
is $2,000. Estimating 350,000 such collisions a year (based on
only those deer kills reported), the total annual cost of vehicle
repair is $700 million.
Moreover, deer and other game animals are a natural resource
with economic value derived from hunting expenditures. The
Michigan Technology Transfer Center placed the economic cost of a
lost deer at between $700 and $1,000. Additional expenses
resulting from deer-vehicle collisions include accident
investigation and removal of dead animals from the highway.
Deer-vehicle collisions are becoming more frequent as deer
populations thrive, vehicle miles traveled increase, and people
continue moving to rural areas heavily populated by deer. The
growing number of insurance claims that are resulting from
animal-vehicle collisions contributes to escalating premiums.
Preventive Measures
Highway safety advocates emphasize that the best way to
prevent deer-vehicle collisions is vigilance. In daylight hours,
the watchful motorist can often see an animal at the side of the
road, or on the road, soon enough to avoid a collision. In
darkness, however, motorists frequently do not see an animal
until it is too close to avoid. For this reason, and because
many animals are most active during the evening and early morning
hours, 90 percent of deer-vehicle collisions happen between dusk
and dawn.
To reduce collisions between vehicles and animals, agencies
responsible for highways are using several preventive measures--
including signs, fences, underpasses, diversionary feeding areas,
expanded hunting seasons, and roadside reflectors. Motorists
themselves are trying whistles and other noises to warn animals
of an approaching vehicle.
Signs
Deer-crossing, moose-crossing, and even goose-crossing signs
are common throughout the United States. Signs let motorists
know that they are likely to see a certain kind of animal on the
road in this area. While signs may be effective in alerting
motorists of a hazard when they are unfamiliar with an area,
safety experts feel the warning is largely disregarded,
especially by motorists who travel a road frequently.
Fences
Highway maintenance crews sometimes install fences along
roadways in areas where animals frequently cross. Fences are an
expensive preventive measure to install and maintain, and they
are not always effective. Deer will jump a fence or dig under it
in order to follow their well-established feeding or migration
path; once an animal is on a fenced roadway, it may have trouble
getting off. In addition, fences are designed to prevent game
from crossing the roadway--any time of the day and whether
vehicles are present or not. Once animals realize that crossing
in one area will always be difficult, they are likely to
establish an alternate crossing at one end or the other of the
fenced portion of the road.
Underpasses
In an article called, "Clash of Deer and Man Tests Public
Ingenuity," the September 10, 1990 edition of The New York Times
NATIONAL reported, "In Colorado and some other Western states,
officials have even built underpasses to funnel deer beneath busy
highways." Alaska has also tried providing tunnels to keep moose
off freeways. The cost of building such underpasses is high.
Diversionary Feeding Areas
The number of collisions between deer and vehicles increases
in the spring and fall. Deer move more widely throughout their
entire feeding range in the spring; therefore, they cross roads
more frequently. Also, in late winter and early spring deer in
mountainous western states move to lower elevations to feed. The
fall mating season contributes to the increased movement of deer
and other animals. In some mountainous western states, game
officials and biologists have set up diversionary feeding areas
away from roadways so that animals coming down from higher
elevations in search of food will not cross the road. This
practice is labor intensive and expensive, and it is only
effective in certain types of terrain.
Expanded Hunting Seasons
In states where deer herds are thriving, officials have
lengthened the hunting season and increased the limit on the
number of animals hunters can take. Michigan's deer population
peaked at 1.7 million in 1989. Since then, longer fall hunting
seasons had decreased that number by nearly 10 percent. The
goal, according to an official from the Department of Natural
Resources, is to cut the herd to 1.3 million by 1992.
Roadside Reflectors
Given the high percentage of deer-vehicle collisions that
happen at night, some highway departments are installing
reflectors at regular intervals along the side of the roadway in
areas where deer and other animals frequently cross. The most
commonly used of these devices, the Swareflex Wildlife Reflector,
reflects light from an approaching vehicle's headlights to create
a low-intensity red beam that bounces across the roadway and into
ditches and woods. Drivers will not see the reflected light;
however when an animal comes upon the unnatural and apparently
moving light patterns, it is stopped from crossing the road.
After the vehicle has passed, the lighted "fence" disappears, and
the animal may continue safely on its way.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety described the
reflectors as "the most promising system for preventing deer
crashes."
Whistles and Other Noisemakers
Ultrasonic whistles mounted on vehicle bumpers emit a shrill
tone when air passes through them as the vehicle travels over
thirty miles per hour. Manufacturers claim these whistles are
audible to deer (but not to humans) and effective in frightening
deer from the roadway. The whistle is about two inches long and
bullet shaped. In 1990, according to The New York Times NATIONAL,
deer whistles cost about $25, and such groups as the California,
Iowa, and Kansas state police were using them on their patrol
cars.
While manufacturers contend deer can hear the whistle up to
a quarter mile away, no published research verifies the device's
effectiveness. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
presented evidence refuting claims promoting the whistles:
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Georgia's Game and Fish Department, for example, found that
in hundreds of observations from vehicles equipped with deer
whistles, deer didn't respond. Whistles on vehicles going
25-30 mph produced no ultrasonic sound, although some
ultrasonic and lower frequencies were produced when the
whistles were blown by mouth. According to wildlife
biologists at the University of Georgia, neither deer nor
humans can hear ultrasonic sound. Whistles blown by mouth
near captive deer produce no response.
A University of Wisconsin study found that three types of
whistle did produce low-pitched and ultrasonic sounds at speeds
of 30 to 70 miles per hour; however, researchers were unable to
verify that deer responded to the sounds, even at distances well
below the distances from which manufacturers claim the whistles
are heard. Moreover, deer would only be able to hear the
whistles if there were a straight shot between the deer and the
whistle. If curves, trees, or other obstacles came between the
deer and the whistle, the device would be ineffective.
According to an article called "Blowing the Whistle on Deer
Scare Devices" in the Mid-February 1993 Farm Journal, the Ohio
State Police installed deer whistles on their patrol vehicles;
however, they reported finding no significant decrease in
collisions between patrol cars and deer. The same article
indicated that a panel of the World Society for the Protection of
Animals could find no data proving "that such a device can
actually stop an animal crossing the road, which is the main
purpose of the device." Finally, Washington State University
researcher Leonard Askham felt the evidence tended to favor a
conclusion that deer whistles do not work. "Even if the devices
were effective," Askham warned, "they would soon become clogged
with insects and dirt and stop working."
The New York Times NATIONAL described a different, creative way
to use sound to frighten deer and other animals off the road and
out of the path of oncoming vehicles. The article explained:
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Before he discovered deer whistles, a supervisor for an
Arkansas utility came up with his own plan to scare deer off
dark country roads. He taped the barking of his neighbors'
dogs, rigged an amplified speaker to the front of his truck
and then broadcast the tape as he cruised down highways.
But he abandoned the scheme, amid concern that the barking
was not only scaring deer, but awakening residents of
southern Arkansas.
