Vehicles Colliding with Animals on the Rise

Human deaths due to vehicles colliding with animals on U.S. roads are on the rise, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The IIHS says in 2003, such fatalities rose 27%, to 201. This is almost double the average number of deaths seen in the mid-1990s. And most of these deaths were preventable, the IIHS notes, resulting from drivers not wearing seatbelts or motorcyclists not wearing helmets (note that one-third of animal collisions involved motorcycles, even though passenger vehicles outnumber them 40 to 1 on the road). About 75% of such crashes involve deer and most occurred in late fall.