There is not a more frightening encounter for most folks than an encounter between their automobile and a deer. That potentially dangerous encounter is greatest during the fall season and an encounter can lead to serious automobile damage and life threatening injuries.

My good friends Bobby and Glenda McLeod had one such encounter recently. Fortunately, they were not injured but their car suffered serious damage. A quite early morning ride to work was interrupted by a deer dashing out of the woods and into the path of their automobile.

It is a documented fact that deer are more active during the early hours of the day during the fall season and that activity often takes them to roadside areas where encounters with autos are likely. Those early morning hours of darkness are when a majority of auto/deer collisions occur.

Defensive driving can help avoid some accidents but there is little a driver can do to avoid a deer that decides to dash across a road in front of their automobile. Any driver attempting to avoid a deer by swerving or hard braking can sometimes make a potential accident more serious.

In my many years of early morning commuting to Macon from my home on Lake Sinclair, I remember many close calls with deer. When returning home after a day at work, I would often see dead deer beside the road that had encountered an automobile and I could only wonder about what might have happened.

In those almost 25 years of commuting to Macon, I was fortunate to have never hit a deer. There were several close encounters but never a collision. During that period, I did have one collision with a deer during the early morning hours but it occurred on a Saturday as I was traveling to Lake Blackshear to compete in a fishing tournament.

I guess I had always wondered what it would be like to hit a deer while traveling at a high rate of speed and I was about to find out. I had recently purchased a new Ranger bass boat and fortunately the boat trailer had electric brakes that would engage anytime the automobile brakes were engaged.

Those trailer brakes allowed me to safely engage the automobile brakes and slow the speed of the impending crash. Even then it was like hitting a brick wall when my SUV and the huge buck collided. It almost totaled my automobile including wiping out the entire front-end, the radiator and even the transmission. Fortunately the trailer brakes kept the boat and trailer squarely behind my vehicle and I suffered no injuries.

It did take me several weeks to finally get the deer hair out of my boat carpet and even though repaired, my SUV never ran quite right after that collision and it had to be replaced. I often wondered what that collision would have been like in a small car. Probably better I did not know the answer to that thought.

The deer population has been reduced from a high of 1.4 million deer to the present population of about 1 million and consequently deer/auto collisions have been decreasing. The decrease in deer populations is primarily due to changes in deer regulations that have allowed an increase in the number of deer harvested by hunters.

“Hunting is oftentimes mistakenly blamed for deer-auto collisions when in reality, regulated hunting offers the most effective and economical tool for managing deer populations,” explained Don McGowan, senior wildlife biologist, Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “Deer are on the move due to a variety of reasons.”

One major reason that deer move more frequently during the fall is the breeding season. As the deer search out mates for breeding that greatly increases their movement and that often brings the deer onto and across highways where collisions with automobiles are very likely.

As rural areas are populated by humans, deer move more and when their natural food sources disappear due to increased human populations, the deer are more likely to travel into neighborhoods looking for food. Even a slow speed neighborhood collision with a deer can cause significant damage to your automobile.

The deer travel into my neighborhood often and dine on our flowers on a regular basis. You will find that deer are picky eaters and only look for certain plants. Unfortunately it seems that most of the plants my wife and I have in our yard are deer favorites. We have found a way to control their appetite for our flowers and I’ll share that information in a later article.

Other than being aware that encounters with deer are more likely during the fall season, many deer collisions are unavoidable. Stay alert, slow down your speed and be ready if you do encounter a deer on the roadway. See you next week.

Outdoor columnist Bobby Peoples can be reached via e-mail at brpeoples@alltel.net.