Opinion: Avoiding animals

Doug Dahl explains how drivers should respond to animals on the road, advising braking over swerving, scanning ahead, and adjusting speed for wildlife-prone areas.

Doug Dahl addresses how you should react to animals in or near the roadway

Q: If you spend much time driving in rural areas you will encounter animals on the road. How should you react to animals in or near the roadway?

A: Here’s a trivia question: What animal kills the most humans in the US? If you answered shark or bear, you’re not even close. It’s other humans. I know, that’s a trick question. If we take ourselves out of the equation though, it’s deer. One researcher estimated that deer are responsible for 440 of the 458 annual deaths caused by animals. No, they’re not ferocious; they don’t mix well with traffic.

Of course, there’s no law preventing deer from walking onto the roadway, so this one’s up to us. And we don’t have a law that says it’s illegal to hit a deer, at least not a traffic law. I don’t know much about wildlife laws, but if you intentionally hit a deer with your truck, is that considered hunting? If so, I suppose you’d need to do it in season. But I’m getting off track.

If you can avoid a crash with an animal by either swerving or braking, choose braking. You’re more likely to maintain control of a vehicle while braking in a straight line, compared to swerving. But sometimes braking alone isn’t enough. At 40 mph on a dry road, the stopping distance is about 120 feet. If a coyote darts out 80 feet in front of you, physics says you can’t stop in time.

So what do you do? In an advanced driving course I took, the instructor taught us never to swerve for an animal that’s lower than your hood. If that sounds callous, understand that running into that coyote might dent your car, and will hurt the coyote, but you’ll likely be fine (physically, at least. If you’re sad about the coyote remember that, according to cartoons, he’ll come back to life at any minute.) Drivers who swerve may lose control and crash, turning what might have been property (and animal) damage into a serious injury crash.

For animals taller than your hood, like deer and elk, there’s a real risk that the torso of the animal could come through the windshield and strike the occupants in the front seats. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in crash tests and, unfortunately, in real life. For large animals, swerving might be a necessary risk in an undesirable circumstance.

But let’s take this all a step back. It’s better to avoid the situation all together than minimize the consequences of it. We can’t control when an animal walks into a roadway, but smart driving practices can help if one does. Scan well ahead (something we should all be doing anyway), including along the sides of the roadway. If it’s dark, choose a speed that doesn’t outrun your headlights. (It’s slower than you think.) Observe your surroundings; does it look like the kind of place where wild animals want to hang out? Also, consider the time of day. Animals have peak times of activity. Deer, for example, are most active around dawn and dusk.

And then assume what I just wrote is insufficient, as animals can pop up anywhere, at any time. I once saw two deer grazing midday on a small patch of grass between the road and a movie theater in an urban center.

Despite no “don’t hit a deer” traffic laws, the law prohibits driving faster than is “reasonable and prudent” given the “actual and potential hazards.” If you think you’re in wildlife country, choose a speed that gives you the best chances to avoid a crash.

Doug Dahl addresses how you should react to animals in or near the roadway

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