Another email alert from the DSA:
Drivers warned of deer accident risks
As autumn approaches, the Highways Agency is asking drivers to watch out for deer, particularly at dawn and dusk. Every year, people are killed or injured in road collisions with wild deer around England. There have been over 2,000 recorded deer-vehicle collisions since January 2009 on the motorway and A-road network alone.
74,000 deer-vehicle collisions each year
It is estimated that there are up to 74,000 deer-vehicle collisions every year in the UK. Most deer are killed, but thousands are left to die of injuries. Periods of highest risk are autumn and spring, and around dawn and dusk. A key to reducing the number and severity of deer-vehicle collisions is to for drivers to be ‘deer aware’. This means you should slow down and watch out when you see deer close to the road.The DeerAware programme aims to raise public awareness of the danger of wild deer on the roads and reduce the number of collisions. New publicity material is now available, targeting local deer collision ‘hotspots’.
Read more about the DeerAware programme on DirectGov
When I’m doing the emergency stop briefing, there is a true story I always tell my pupils to hammer home the importance of speed and being able to stop promptly and in control. It is part of the “what if” scenario – things you have little control over.
A few years ago I was driving through the Cotswolds. It was slightly misty, and at the time of year when the deer seem to go nuts during the rut. I think it was on the A429 or A424. I was heading North, and there was a Ford Transit, a Ford Ka, and then me driving along. All of a sudden, a herd of deer leapt out through a gap in a hedge – there must have been more than a dozen of them – and the Transit slammed into them at close to 60mph (he wasn’t speeding or anything).
It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon in some respects. The air just filled with deer, they were jumping everywhere in panic!
The Transit driver couldn’t really have done anything, but the thing I remember most of all was that his engine literally fell out on to the road. There was oil and water everywhere, along with injured deer. It’s that part I emphasise: the damage that could be done if you were to drive into, say, a child or other person.