Were in the top 5 for deer / car collisions

[iowathumper]

This post comes from Des Toups at partner site CarInsurance.com.

If you live in West Virginia, Montana, Iowa, South Dakota or Pennsylvania, better make sure you've got $3,414 lying around.

That's the damage a typical deer-car collision causes, State Farm says, and those are the five states where you're most likely to hit a deer in the next year.

The company's annual update on deer collisions comes as peak season for conflict between car and mammal approaches: November is the worst month for collisions, with October and December right behind. The odds of a licensed driver hitting a deer in West Virginia over the next 12 months, State Farm says, are a staggering 1 in 41. The runners up:

• Montana: 1 in 65
• Iowa: 1 in 73
• South Dakota: 1 in 75
• Pennsylvania: 1 in 77

Nationwide, a typical driver has a 1 in 174 chance of hitting a deer in the next 12 months; odds are lowest in Hawaii, just 1 in 6,787. You can see State Farm's estimates for every state here.

Though the price tag of a deer encounter has risen 3.3% over the last year, the company says, the odds of a strike have actually slipped a little in recent years.

"This data is encouraging," says State Farm Director of Strategic Resources Chris Mullen. "We would like to think the attention we call to this issue each fall has had an impact. Obviously there are other factors at play as well."

Collisions remain far from rare: Researchers estimate there were 1.22 million deer-related collisions in the year that ended June 30.

Car insurance coverage for deer-inspired damage comes under the comprehensive portion of your policy. Comprehensive covers theft, fire, hail, vandalism and other events largely beyond your control. A claim typically will not raise your car insurance rates unless you have additional recent claims.

If you live in a deer-dense state, it might make sense to lower your deductible. And if you're armed with only liability coverage, drive very, very carefully.

 

[nannyslayer]

They were talking about this on the radio this morning. You have a 1 in 73 chance of hitting a deer in the state of Iowa.

A spokesman from Farm Bureau was on saying that the accidents have gotten fewer in the last 3 years due to them making more people aware of when and where deer collisions can occur, and how to avoid them.

They also said deer numbers were still extremely high throughout the state, and the DNR is working on lowering those numbers to a more except able level.

There really is no hope in sight for lowering tags, hunters are just going to have to refuse to fill them. But, that will never happen, so hang on hunters!!

 

[Sligh1]

I've done some math on here before on putting up fence on newly constructed high traffic or high speed expressways.... For example, Ottumwa put a 4 lane highway thru deer country that covers about 2 miles of the worst area. I think I maybe saw 20-30 deer collisions there in 1st year with deer dead along side. For the price of damage of those collisions in ONE YEAR you easily could have done a very simple single layer fence with 4x4 posts that would have paid for itself in one year and kept deer out of that area for 20 years before major repairs to fence. Nope, stupid idea, let's eradicate deer out of every other area & do nothing about where huge amounts of deer are hit & could fix the majority of those cases with some simple dollars & cents mathematics. I realize vast country areas have deer collisions but in the rivers going across highways & timber along high traveled areas- that's where most of collision (%) are occurring and the cheapest to fix considering hunters will never uniquely eliminate deer out of those small areas anyways. Go along highway 20 near Iowa Falls- 2 miles of fence on both sides and fixed the issue for the vast majority of the cases.

 

[StickersNKickers]

I've done some math on here before on putting up fence on newly constructed high traffic or high speed expressways.... For example, Ottumwa put a 4 lane highway thru deer country that covers about 2 miles of the worst area. I think I maybe saw 20-30 deer collisions there in 1st year with deer dead along side. For the price of damage of those collisions in ONE YEAR you easily could have done a very simple single layer fence with 4x4 posts that would have paid for itself in one year and kept deer out of that area for 20 years before major repairs to fence. Nope, stupid idea, let's eradicate deer out of every other area & do nothing about where huge amounts of deer are hit & could fix the majority of those cases with some simple dollars & cents mathematics. I realize vast country areas have deer collisions but in the rivers going across highways & timber along high traveled areas- that's where most of collision (%) are occurring and the cheapest to fix considering hunters will never uniquely eliminate deer out of those small areas anyways. Go along highway 20 near Iowa Falls- 2 miles of fence on both sides and fixed the issue for the vast majority of the cases.

Are you running in 2014?

 

[Bowtech84]

I've done some math on here before on putting up fence on newly constructed high traffic or high speed expressways.... For example, Ottumwa put a 4 lane highway thru deer country that covers about 2 miles of the worst area. I think I maybe saw 20-30 deer collisions there in 1st year with deer dead along side. For the price of damage of those collisions in ONE YEAR you easily could have done a very simple single layer fence with 4x4 posts that would have paid for itself in one year and kept deer out of that area for 20 years before major repairs to fence. Nope, stupid idea, let's eradicate deer out of every other area & do nothing about where huge amounts of deer are hit & could fix the majority of those cases with some simple dollars & cents mathematics. I realize vast country areas have deer collisions but in the rivers going across highways & timber along high traveled areas- that's where most of collision (%) are occurring and the cheapest to fix considering hunters will never uniquely eliminate deer out of those small areas anyways. Go along highway 20 near Iowa Falls- 2 miles of fence on both sides and fixed the issue for the vast majority of the cases.

Surprisingly I think that this is catching on. When expanding the lanes on 20 in the sac city area we put up 8 ft field fence along the areas with creeks and timbers. Even put in deer gates to allow any deer that got on the highway side an exit to safety. When you cross the platte river headed towards Lincoln on I-80 near Mahoney state park we did the same thing. But the only time I see them doing it is when they are already doing something with the pavement and are in need of fence replacement. As the years go by hopefully they will continue the process and eventually it will all be taken care of.

 

[Bowtech84]

No need for it in my area. The deer are going to be just as scarce as pheasants do to habitat loss. I drive an hour and 10 min one way every weekday and in the past 15 months have seen 2 dead deer on the shoulder. Might have been a few more I couldn't see that made it to the ditch but still, 2 deer!

 

[fatboy]

I know accidents happen, but you have people out there doing eveything in their cars but driving. I think also we have more people on the roads that have to commute longer distances for work that put them on the roads during dawn and dusk.

 

[DWilk]

How are these numbers derived? I could see these stats being seriously skewed... If a survey was done to see how many drivers have hit a deer, expanded out to represent total population, then yeah odds are higher in Iowa we have less people! .......example: Illinois has millions of drivers/people that never leave the city and have 0 chance of hitting a deer, so if showing odds for the state as a whole.... Very misleading.

 

[bowmaker]

According to the IDNR site the number of deer reported killed by autos was 10,626 n 2011. That translates into 547 deer killed per BILLION MILES DRIVEN. If you compare past years that correlates with 1994 very closely. In 1994 there were 10,438 kills which meant 663 per billion miles driven. All this means is that there are way more cars with the opportunity of hitting way less deer for the miles driven. The stated goal of the IDNR deer herd reduction program was to get it down to the mid 1990s level. According to the same site the total harvest for 1994 was 87,231 deer and our last years harvest was 121,407 so it appears that results of this report is badly misleading, possibly intentionally. If we are hitting far fewer deer per miles driven shouldn't our insurance rates be falling in accord with the decline in the deer herd?