The Iowa Department of Transportation says now’s the time to be on the lookout for deer. Spokesperson Mary Stahlhut says Bambi and friends are looking for love and trying to avoid the green Deere machines.
October and November are mating season for deer, and they’re trying to avoid farmers harvesting fields. Stahlhut says deer accidents have increased 20 percent over the past decade as traffic volume and the number of deer increase.
Iowa averaged 72-hundred deer accidents a year in the last decade. Stahlhut says six percent of the crashes involved injury to people, with an average of two deaths each year. She says accidents with deer can be avoided.
She says you should be alert in areas where the deer may run, and if you see one deer, there’s likely another to follow. Stahlhut says it’s best to stay on the road when a deer runs in front of your car.
You should use your brakes and not your steering wheel to avoid the deer, as you could end up in the ditch and be hurt. Stahlhut says the D-O-T advocates more hunting to thin the deer population.