While taking accident reports for a major insurance company this summer, it dawned on me that not only are deer responsible for some of the strangest accidents I’ve ever heard of, the entire deer population seems to be actively suicidal. A personal trip into upstate New York a few months later confirmed my suspicions.

While taking accident reports for a major insurance company this summer, it dawned on me that not only are deer responsible for some of the strangest accidents I’ve ever heard of, the entire deer population seems to be actively suicidal. A personal trip into upstate New York a few months later confirmed my suspicions.

Right now current figures claim that $1.1 billion dollars in damage are caused by 1.5 million deer-related car accidents every year. When I first heard these numbers, I found them a little hard to believe. After all, exactly how many deer find it necessary to throw themselves into oncoming traffic in precisely a manner that maximizes automobile damage?

The calls I received from customers involved in these incidents never failed to impress me. Half the time it sounded as if what the policyholders were describing defied the laws of physics. How could two deer sprint across four lanes of traffic, jump over an adjacent car and slam themselves into the side panel of someone’s brand new vehicle like they had been catapulted by a medieval trebuchet? Why would a deer stand quietly on the side of the highway casually eating its last meal before finding it necessary to buck wildly into traffic and catalyze a four-car pileup?

The stories were outrageous, but also very frightening. Each day it seemed as if a new deer-related accident was being called in, and the damage and insurance payouts always seemed to be the highest in these cases. In each instance, the policyholder inevitably described the absolute erratic nature of the deer’s behavior in the seconds leading up to the crash. The old “deer in headlights” cliché slowly began to prove its accuracy to me.

One afternoon, while I was driving out to inspect a customer’s damaged vehicle, I approached a group of three deer on the side of a hazy and densely forested highway in upstate New York. Armed with the knowledge of how unpredictable these animals could be, I decreased my speed to a cautious fifteen miles per hour as I rounded the bend where they were standing. Suddenly, and without warning, the deers’ bodies tensed and their heads shot up and stared at my oncoming vehicle like it was a six-headed monster.

Their dark eyes rolled wildly inside their skulls and reflected my headlights eerily. All three began to buck in place amongst each other in a display that seemed terrifyingly ritualistic. When I was about ten feet from them, two of the larger deer sprinted out across the road in a desperate attempt to reach the grass on the other side. I slammed down on my brakes and brought my car to a stop merely inches from contact with the posterior of the largest one. Had I been going a mile or two faster, there is no doubt in my mind that both deer would’ve been launched through my windshield. My heart raced madly as I watched the final deer walk casually across the road, following his suicidal brethren into the thick brush opposite the original bank.

My personal experience with the insanity of deer helped me understand just how ridiculously easy it is for them to be involved in such destructive accidents. Even traveling at fifteen miles per hour with advanced knowledge of the possibilities, I still only narrowly missed disaster. My advice to anyone who drives in areas that are known to be populated by deer: always stay focused and alert on the road, and never assume you will be able to predict the animal’s next move.