It's not just a case of deer misses on UK roads
by AUTONATIONAL RESCUE
Road kill �C whether it��s foxes, badgers or deer - can have a huge impact on British wildlife populations.
As many as 75,000 deer are thought to be hit by cars every year in the UK, the vast majority in England.
But even that shocking statistic does not account for other animals that crawl off the road to suffer and die after being hit by cars and other vehicles. Then there are the human deaths and injuries that occur as a direct result of deer collisions.
Breakdown service Autonational Rescue is welcoming the arrival of The Deer Vehicle Collisions project �C the first study to centrally collect data on road accidents involving deer.
Says Autonational��s marketing manager Ronan Hart: ��We need to know the scale of the problem in the UK��s countryside and on the outskirts of our towns and cities. Previously there was no system for central registration of road accidents involving deer.��
There are probably around 200 accidents a day involving deer, and the costs per vehicle, with an average insurance claim costing just ?300, could reach as much as ?60,000 per day across the UK! That��s over ?21 million pounds a year.
Added Ronan: ��What many motorists don��t realise is that deer related traffic accidents very often don��t kill the animal outright �C which is bad enough �C but they have to be either put down by rangers, vets or RSPCA staff afterwards or they escape to die later of their injuries.
��What��s more, especially at night in winter fog and rain, they are a major safety hazard to road users and lead to expensive damage to cars and human injuries and even deaths.��
In the worst case scenario, the deer can, in a high speed collision, come through the front windscreen hitting the occupants.
Added Ronan: ��Hopefully the study will also help to identify measures that can be used to try to reduce deer collisions, such as fencing, warning signs and the use of roadside reflectors.��
Six main species of deer live wild in Britain (namely Fallow, Roe, Muntjac, Red Deer, Sika and Chinese water deer) with a combined population of between 700,000 and one million head.
Deer mirrors can be used to reflect car headlights back into the forest and help scare the deer away from the road (when used with audible signals they startle the deer, which encourages them to avoid the roads). There are already 200 of these in use in Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, helping to keep deer and drivers alike safe.
In England alone, accident blackspots for deer include:
? Epping Forest, Essex ? Cannock Chase, Staffordshire ? Dinmore Hill, Herefordshire ? Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire ? The Mendips, Somerset ? Halden Hill,Devon ? The New Forest in Hampshire ? The Southampton to Portsmouth area ? Ashridge Woods in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire ? Thetford Forest, Norfolk.
But, says Dr Jochen Langbein who is leading the Deer Initiative��s national study, with increasing numbers of deer in suburban areas, there are very few places in England or Scotland unaffected by deer/vehicle collisions.
You can do your bit to help avoid deer: take special note of warning signs, drive with extreme caution and slow down for wildlife especially at night and in severe weather conditions.
High risk times are from sunset to midnight (when it is virtually impossible to see fast running deer on a country road), so after dark always use full beam when there is no opposing traffic.
Your vehicle��s full beam can pick out the eyes of the deer and if one runs across in front of you, watch out, as there are likely to be more around. Don��t forget, you are particularly vulnerable when driving close to thick hedges or woodland. And if you are unlucky enough to hit and injure a deer, then call the police who will contact a local woodland or forest ranger to help.
For more driving tips, please visit Autonational Rescue
More resources: Autonational Rescue, Press area, Our services
