Three Things Drivers Need to Keep in Mind About Deer

Did you know that according to the most recent set of deer auto accidents statistics from the the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are about 1.5 million bad car accidents involving deer every year? This means that there will be more than 4,100 deer auto accidents today alone. Even scarier is that an average of 10 million accidents go unreported each year, which means that there are even more deer auto accidents than are being accounted for.

If you’d like to protect yourself, your car, and our nation’s wildlife, there are some things you need to keep in mind. Here are just a few.

Just Because You Only See One Deer Doesn’t Mean There’s Only One Deer Around Deer travel in groups, so if you only see one, know that there are others around who might jump out at your car when you least expect. If the deer you see is far away, you should still proceed with caution, as there are most definitely others around.

Be Careful at the Times When the Deer Are Most Active Most deer auto accidents happen around dawn and dusk for a reason. These are the times of the day when deer are most active. The trouble is that these also happen to be the times when people are going to and coming home from work. This means that as you commute to and from work, you need to be extra cautious of deer.

If It’s Too Late to Avoid an Accident, Slow Down Sometimes, deer auto accidents are inevitable. In those dangerous instances when it’s too late to avoid collisions, you should slow down as much as you possibly can in order to help minimize the damage to your vehicle. Though you’ll be tempted to swerve to avoid the deer, it’s better to stay the course. If you try to move out of the deer’s path, you may either wind up hitting something else, or cause other an accident with other drivers on the road. Even if your car is the only one involved, and there’s minimal damage, you still need to call the cops. Deer auto accidents are still auto accidents.

If you’ve hit a deer and need help dealing with your insurance case, auto accidents lawyers can help you out. If you have any general questions about deer auto accidents, though, please feel free to ask in the comments.