On the first Sunday of November each year in the United States, clocks “fall back” one hour with the end of daylight saving time and usher in the shorter, darker days of the winter months. This adjustment has serious implications beyond the loss of sunlight: research shows that the end of daylight saving time brings a 16% rise in vehicle and deer collisions in the week following.
Ron Moen, a wildlife biologist at the Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI), associate professor in UMD's Swenson College of Science and Engineering and scholar in the Center for Transportation Studies, discusses how deer collisions affect Minnesota drivers and how we can all stay safer as the seasons change.
Q: How do deer collisions affect Minnesota drivers?
Moen: The effect of a deer-vehicle collision (DVC) on drivers varies. While most DVCs only cause property damage, collisions can cause an injury or, even worse, a fatality. About 1,300 DVCs have been reported to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety in recent years, but our data, and data from insurance claims, suggests the true number of DVCs in Minnesota is at least 10 times higher, and maybe up to 20 times higher. The cost of time and money for repairs to the vehicle after a collision is high, but — particularly when injuries or fatalities happen — there is a significant emotional cost on top of the financial costs of a DVC.
Q: What contributes to the rise in deer collisions with the end of daylight saving time?
Moen: The rise in DVCs observed at the end of daylight saving time is likely a combination of three main factors. On the deer behavior side, deer are typically more active around dusk and dawn, and deer also move more in the fall than at other times of the year. On the human side, when we end daylight savings time, the peak commute hour coincides with dusk, which means there are a lot of people driving right at the time that there are a lot of active deer.
Q: What steps can drivers take to avoid deer collisions?
Moen: Driver speed and driver awareness are key. If you drive at the speed limit, particularly in areas where you commonly see deer, you’ll have more time to react if you see a deer and therefore more time to avoid hitting the deer. It is also important for drivers to maintain awareness of your surroundings. You should consciously watch for deer as you’re driving, and if you see a deer, anticipate that it could move into the roadway. Especially if one deer crosses the road, a second or third deer may follow.
Q: What should drivers do if a collision happens?
Moen: It depends on the severity of the collision and traffic conditions. Be sure to move the vehicle off the roadway, turn on your flashers and check for traffic in all directions before you get out of the car to evaluate the damage. If there are injuries involved, call 911. In Minnesota, drivers are required to report any crashes that involve injury or death of a person, or cause more than $1,000 in property damage.
You should alert police by calling 911 if there is a dead deer in a traffic lane. This is so the dead deer doesn’t cause a secondary collision. Be especially careful on controlled access highways like interstates and on roads with high traffic volumes.
Q: How is the U of M improving knowledge on deer collisions?
Moen: Deer-vehicle collisions have a tremendous financial and emotional cost for the citizens of Minnesota. My team at the U of M has been working with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to gather data on all the DVCs reported in the past 20 years to predict roadway corridors and specific sections of those corridors that are particularly risky for DVCs. This provides insight into what factors — such as adjacent land use and speed limit — along with other roadway characteristics are particularly risky for DVCs. This project was a first step to evaluate the overall effect of DVCs on Minnesota drivers — the last study created from Minnesota data was published in 2003. Since then we’ve had over 40,000 DVCs reported to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, which, given our estimates of the reporting rate, add up to several hundred thousand DVCs in actuality. If our project helps reduce DVCs by even one half of a percent, it would more than pay for itself.
Ron Moen, Ph.D., is a wildlife biologist at the Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI), an associate professor in the Department of Biology in UMD's Swenson College of Science and Engineering and a scholar in the Center for Transportation Studies. He has held graduate faculty appointments in Integrated Biosciences at UMD since 2004 and Conservation Biology at the U of M Twin Cities since 2005.
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About the Center for Transportation Studies
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