More deer plus greater urban sprawl equals be careful out there:
State Farm Insurance says deer-vehicle collisions in Indiana are up 24 percent from five years ago. That compares with a 15 percent increase over the entire United States.
The insurance company says the chance of an Indiana vehicle colliding with a deer over the next 12 months is an astonishing 1 in 127. The risk is probably even greater in northeast Indiana, which typically leads the state in deer crashes.
It could be worse, however. Indiana ranks only 11th on the list, with West Virginia in first place at 1 in 45 odds of hitting a deer. Be careful when you head north, because Michigan is in second place.
I went looking for a story with more details and discovered that there are approximately 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions annually in the United States, causing more than 150 million fatalities and $1.1 billion in property damage. Cute but deadly, those creatures.
