By Angela Hatton
Murray, KY – The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet warns motorists to be extra-cautious about deer on the road in the next few months. Cabinet spokesman Keith Todd says of more than 3,000 crashes in western Kentucky in 2009, the majority of them occurred in the last three months of the year. Todd says motorists should try to slow down to a stop if they see deer on the road.
"I know it's really hard to try to avoid swerving when you encounter an animal in the road. Uh, but you're very often better off to go ahead and hit the deer as opposed to swerving off the road and having a more serious crash or swerving off into oncoming traffic and having a head-on with somebody else."
Todd says deer-vehicle collisions often go unreported, so the number could be much higher. The Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Department reports the statewide deer population continues to hover around 900,000. The average deer-vehicle collision causes about $3,000 worth of damage.