First Posted: 10/28/2013
While driving to Toledo recently on Mid-American Cleaning business, the large roadside brown bundles caught my eye. Now, since I spend a good deal of time driving, either scratching my leisure-travel itch or for business, I see a lot of bundles, as in bundles of roadside trash someone has gathered, bagged and left for pickup. But, these bundles, four alone between Lima and Bluffton off Interstate 75, were different. They had faces, not at all dissimilar to Bambi’s.
Each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are about a million roadway accidents involving deer, causing more than a billion dollars in vehicle damage, thousands of personal injuries and hundreds of deaths.
While, once upon a cinematic time, you may have been terrified by the great white in the 1975 release “Jaws” or the wolves in Liam Neeson’s 2011 “The Grey,” there is little doubt that, especially during this time of year in North America, the most dangerous animal is not a shark or a wolf or even a grizzly but all those cute little Bambis and his friends who just can’t seem to stay off the roads.
On average, according to figures released by State Farm Insurance, there are more car-deer incidents in November than any other month. For deer, fall is mating season, and, according to University of Alberta biologist Rob Found, “Males are so focused on mating, they’re not thinking straight. They’re looking for mates and other males to fight.” And, while back in my bar-hopping days, I got the distinct impression that The Wayside in the early ’70s was a bit like that, at least those males stayed off the road!
Steering some 5,000 pounds of metal down the pike at 65 or so miles per hour is tough enough much less worrying about a large animal with a friend or three charging out from the next thicket. As I think we all know, deer are social creatures. When you see the first one, brace for the trailers!
Because deer are most active in the early morning and at sunset, when I’m either adjusting to a new day or somewhat fatigued from my miles already traveled at the end, I try to keep the thought of all those rutting deer at the very tip of my mind.
I also tend to increase my vigilance in areas where I see those deer-crossing signs. Despite the silly notion that deer actually check out such signs and say, “Oh, here’s where we’re supposed to cross!” I figure most certainly someone who studies these furry rascals put those signs there for a reason.
Really, I’m pretty amazed I haven’t had a deer collision by this point in my life. After all, in my teaching days, I always had some commuting to do, almost all of which was in darkness once the fall-back change of time occurred, as I made my way to my classroom, first to Perry in Cridersville, then to Allen East in Lafayette and then, for 27 Novembers to Memorial High School in St. Marys.
I’ve had several dart out, had one incident where one was on the road licking snow-melt salt in the pre-dawn darkness and appeared to dematerialize nanoseconds before impact and rematerialize immediately after I whooshed by and even ran over a dead one that came spinning out from under the car in front of me on a frigid, snow-swept state Route 66. But, the worst that’s ever happened was in that latter incident when the aforementioned deceased’s carcass knocked all the remote ABS sensors out of whack and wound up costing me a couple of hundred bucks. I considered that, despite the car bill, a huge win that day.
Now, personally, as, I think, a lot of you “mature” drivers, I’m not really crazy about driving in the dark, but the fact of the matter is, for me, it’s inevitable, given the necessity of early starts to get to cleaning accounts as far away as Lexington, Ky. As all safety researchers suggest, I use my high beams as much as possible.
However, that’s far more difficult on busier highways, unfortunately. Now, on a two-lane road, I guess I understand the need to dim down for oncoming traffic when someone is just a few feet to the left, but wouldn’t it be nice, to provide us more visibility to see our immediate future, if we road warriors could maintain those high beams on four-lane roads with wide grass medians?
I mean, really, unless a car is right beside me going the other way, I am absolutely unfazed by another car’s high beams on the other side of that strip of grass. I know this because, on many occasions, I’ve casually looked across that space and, beyond that state employee perched there aiming a laser at me to ruin my day, spotted someone driving with his high beams. When a car is that far away, it doesn’t bother me in the least.
To be honest, so that all of us could see better, especially when it comes to deer, I’m not 100 percent sure I couldn’t adjust to high beams just a few feet over on my two-lane roads. I’ve passed by many a pair of high beams and even several cycloptic versions where a driver is compensating for a headlight being out by using a mono-high beam and haven’t felt all that impeded.
At any rate, it’s November, folks, so consider this one of my PSA columns, so be alert as you go through your daily motorist paces and especially as you go over the river and through the woods on this month’s fourth Thursday to get to grandma’s sweet potatoes and turkey.
