As fall gets underway, you’ll be seeing a lot of more deer prancing around, as bucks start to chase does for a little one-on-one time.
Wildlife experts I spoke to for my story today on the danger of deer mating season for drivers, said that in places like Westchester, Rockland and Putnam, the deer population has exploded in the last decade, thanks to people’s yummy gardens and lack of hunting.
One expert also said that with the mild winter earlier this year, he suspects that more deer survived than usual. Because mating season, which peaks next month, makes deer a a little crazy, this is the time when they are more likely to recklessly jump across roads and into the path of traffic.
If a deer does suddenly jump out in front of your car, it’s best NOT to swerve to try and avoid it. Not only can you hit another car or a fixed object, it may also do damage to your insurance premium. Hitting a deer is considered “an act of nature/God” that’s out of your control. But hitting a guardrail to avoid the animal? That’s a collision and your insurance rates will probably go up, experts tell me in my story.
So tell us: where are the hotspots on certain roads for groups of traveling deer? Have you had an incident with one while driving there, and what did you do?
(A Deer eats along the side of the road in Cortlandt on Sept. 20, 2012. ( Ricky Flores / The Journal News )
