It's high season for deer-car collisions on Pennsylvania roads

Pennsylvania drivers beware: This is the season when the chances of hitting a deer increase, experts say, especially with the end of daylight saving time this weekend.

The state ranks first in the nation for the highest number of animal-vehicle collisions that mostly involve deer, according to insurance company State Farm.

The chances of hitting a deer in Pennsylvania are 1 in 54, according to this year’s ranking from the insurance company.

Pennsylvania has the unfortunate distinction of placing consistently high in annual State Farm rankings for the number and risk of deer collisions. It has been in the top five or 10 states since the insurance company has been releasing the data for nearly 20 years.

Pennsylvania is home to a large number of deer. But the other key factors, said Dave Phillips, a State Farm spokesman who lives in Philadelphia, is that “we have more drivers and more roadways near habitat.”

Adding to drivers’ peril, deer are more active in the fall because they are looking for mates and breeding. Hunters also have taken to the woods, pushing the animals to move more. Deer feed at dusk and dawn when drivers’ visibility is low.

When daylight saving time ends Sunday morning, more motorists will be on the road during the hours of peak deer activity, the Pennsylvania Game Commission recently noted.

“Around this time, many yearling bucks disperse from the areas in which they were born and travel, sometimes several dozen miles, to find new ranges,” said Travis Lau, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. “Meanwhile, adult bucks more often are cruising their home ranges in search of does, and they sometimes chase the does they encounter.”

State police in Westmoreland County and throughout the region already have been responding to more deer-vehicle incidents in the past couple of weeks, spokesman Steve Limani said.

There were 651 reports of vehicle crashes involving deer in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler and Westmoreland counties in 2020, according to PennDOT.

“Deer gobble up resources and manpower and cause a lot of crashes,” Limani said.

They can turn deadly: Deer collisions caused 16 deaths in the state in 2020, according to PennDOT.

Limani remembers a crash in Westmoreland County some years ago when a deer jumped from an area above a roadway and smashed through a windshield, killing a motorist.

At 1,036 total square miles, Westmoreland is the second-largest county in Southwestern Pennsylvania with lots of rural lands, deer and secondary roads, Limani noted.

“I’m a firm believer in having your head on a swivel this time of year when you are driving,” Limani said.

Most deer strikes in the county occur on secondary roads with no visibility and trees coming up to the berm, he said. “There’s a ton more visibility on Routes 30 and 119 and I-70,” Limani noted.

Limani also advises that drivers brake and do slight turns to avoid deer.

“Don’t swerve and lose control of your car to miss a deer because there is a high likelihood you can have a worse outcome,” he said.

Motorists should consider that deer often roam in groups, according to the Game Commission.

“The best advice I can give is to always look out for the buddy — where there is one deer, there is likely more coming from behind it,” said Corp. Brent Miller, director of communications in the State Police Harrisburg office.

Some wildlife advocates said more needs to be done to prevent the collisions that injure residents and animals.

“The problem of animals being killed on roads is so prevalent, people think it’s just something we have to accept,” said Kennerly Clay, founder of Give Pennsylvania Wildlife a Brake/END ROADKILL Pennsylvania, a grassroots wildlife advocacy in Chester County.

Clay touts wildlife bridges as an answer. The bridges suspended above highways can eliminate wildlife-vehicle collisions by up to 95%, Clay said. “It’s an idea whose time has come, and Pennsylvania is slowly catching on,” she said.

To report a dead deer for removal from state roads, motorists can call the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation at 1-800-FIX-ROAD.