Drivers urged to take care as deer-related road accidents peak

The RSPCA has reported a peak in the number of deer-related road accidents over the past few weeks since the clocks went back.

Motorists have been warned to take extra care on the roads, particularly since rutting season is causing greater deer movement, and darker dusk is now clashing with rush hour.
 
Since the beginning of October, the RSPCA says it has received 198 calls about deer-related road traffic accidents, many of which have been fatal.

Typically, it says the number of these calls increases by around 50 per cent in October, and 70 calls were received in the past two weeks alone.
 
Dr Ros Clubb, senior wildlife scientist for the RSPCA, said: “Every year around this time, we hear similar stories of deer and people injured and even killed in road accidents, so we urge drivers to slow down, take extra care and watch out for these animals for their own sake as well as theirs.
 
“As the days get shorter, busy traffic times coincide with dawn and the early part of the night when deer are most active and hardest to spot. In wooded areas in particular, there may be very little warning before one or several deer bolt across.”
 
The RSPCA encourages drivers to be "deer aware" by slowing down and watching out when they are driving in the evenings, particularly in wooded areas.

According to estimates from the Deer Initiative, which promotes the sustainable management of wild deer in England and Wales, there may be up to 74,000 collisions between deer and vehicles every year in the UK.