Hopefully you haven't had a run-in with one on the road. There's a lot more deer to dodge this year, and the state of Indiana is trying to change that.
The deer population causes problems for Michiana drivers. According to insurance companies, in Indiana a car versus deer collision happens about every 33 minutes. In Michigan it's even worse, every nine minutes.
"I swerve to miss quite a few of them on the way to and from work," said Justin Detwiler. He is talking about deer. And he's certainly not the only one who's seen deer on the road. John Healey said, "just driving back and forth to town on the county roads see a lot sittin out in the woods. There's always that fear of jumping out."
You're seeing more deer and probably hearing about more people hitting deer because the population is increasing. Ken Dowdle with the Indiana DNR said, "we have had record deer harvests three of the last four years." Dowdle said because of all those deer, "we have made several changes in the DNR this year to give hunters more opportunity to harvest Deer." They're offering bonus licenses to hunters so they can take additional antlerless deer.
Some think it's exactly what should be done to lessen deer on the roadways but others are against more hunting. Either way everyone agrees it's scary when a deer jumps out in front of their car. So the best thing to do? Dowdle said, pay extra attention when your driving and not just to the road ahead. "Be scanning the sides because the deer don't look both ways."
This is the time of year you're going to be noticing a lot of deer too. It's their mating season so they are very active right now.
