Drivers beware: It’s deer season

By Lauren Buchanan and Lauren Dargay

Many people associate October with pumpkin spice and Halloween, but the month also brings an increase in deer-vehicle collisions in Ohio. On October 2, the Ohio Department of Transportation released a list of the state’s hotspots for deer-vehicle collisions in 2014. More deer crashes occurred in counties in Northeast Ohio than other parts of the state.

Although many people assume that crashes usually occur in rural areas, that is not the case. Most of the locations on ODOT’s list, with the exception of Williams County in Northwest Ohio, are suburban and urban. “These are all sort of suburban areas that lead to metro areas,” ODOT press secretary Matt Bruning said. “They’re sort of where you see a mix of suburban areas butting up against rural areas.”

Deer crashes occur in rural areas, but not nearly as often as they do in more densely populated locations. “Where you have that conflict of urban development and suburban development butting up against rural area, you’re obviously going to have more conflicts between wildlife and humans,” Bruning said.

No Portage County locations appeared on the list, but there were 514 deer crashes in nearby Stark County in 2014.

‘Tis the Season

Deer crashes happen year-round, but there is a noticeable increase in the number of incidents when autumn begins.

There are two factors behind the October increase in deer crashes: Ohio deer hunting season and deer mating season. “Those two things have deer moving this time of year more so than they are other times of the year,” Bruning said. He said the increase in crashes is not expected to drop-off until late December, and the peak time for deer crashes is during November.

The decrease in hours of sunlight that in October brings also plays a role in deer crashes. “We see the largest number of these crashes, about 20% of these crashes, in the early morning hours,” Bruning said. Additionally, many deer-vehicle collisions occur between 5:00 p.m. and midnight. “Those are the key times to really be watching for deer, dawn and after sunset,” Bruning said.

The Impact on Insurance

Drivers may be more alert to the presence of deer on roadways once fall begins, but hitting a deer isn’t always preventable. Aside from damage to a vehicle, many people worry about the impact hitting a deer will have on their auto insurance. A deer crash typically does not cause an increase in insurance rates, though.

Lauren Talion, a State Farm insurance agent in Kent, explained that there are two types of coverage for auto accidents, collision and comprehensive.

“Collision is the more expensive coverage, and that’s what pays if it’s your fault in the accident,” Talion said. Collision coverage, for example, is used when a driver rear-ends another vehicle or hits a car in a parking lot.

“Comprehensive is the coverage that pays if you hit a deer, so you have to specifically have that coverage on your policy, and that pays for basically all other things that don’t fall under the collision side,” Talion said. Comprehensive covers acts of nature, like windshield damage from hail. Hitting a deer is considered an act of nature, and, normally, filing a comprehensive claim will not cause auto insurance rates to increase.

Filing a lot of comprehensive claims, though, can cause a driver’s auto insurance rates to go up. “If you file multiple of the same types of claims, even if it’s not a your-fault type of situation, it can still hurt you in the long run,” Talion said, “but it would have to be pretty excessive, I think, for it to be a real big problem for your rates.”

Many of Talion’s clients have struck deer while driving. “It happens a lot,” she said. Talion has hit one herself, while on Interstate 71 near Columbus at 5:00 a.m. “I was going 70 miles an hour. I was able to slow down a little bit, but, unfortunately, it got hit,” she said.

Talion was able to get off the highway at the nearest exit and assess the damage. Someone helped her cut the fender off of her vehicle because the collision caused it to start rubbing one of the tires. After removing the fender, it was obvious that Talion hit a deer because “there was fur and stuff underneath it,” she said. Talion had comprehensive coverage on her insurance policy, so the damage to her vehicle was covered.

Keeping Roadways Clear

Hitting a deer while driving is covered by comprehensive insurance, but vehicle damage caused by running over an already hit deer laying on the roadway is not. “Anything that’s sitting in the road that you run over, that’s considered a collision,” Talion said. That is just one reason why it is important that the roadway is cleared after a deer crash.

In Ohio, a driver who hits and kills a deer can claim the carcass, but the driver cannot just take the deer from the roadway. State Highway Patrol must be notified. “We would simply sign off the deer over to you and then you’d be legal to have that,” Sgt. Vincent Shirey, Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesperson, said.

If the driver who hit the deer doesn’t claim the carcass it is usually left at the scene of the accident, unless it poses a threat to the safety of motorists. ODOT crews would remove the carcass “if it was right on the edge of the roadway and needed to be moved off or was creating a distraction that could lead to other crashes,” Bruning said, “but, for the most part, we typically let nature take its course.”

2015 Thus Far

As of September 1, 10,371 deer crashes occurred in Ohio in 2015. According to data from ODOT, there have been an average of 21,000 deer crashes on Ohio roadways per year since 2010, so this year’s number is expected to increase from now until the end of the year. The number of crashes has decreased every year since 2010, so there is a chance that that number will go down once again.