Deer-vehicle-collisions

VFTS directs our attention towards an article in today's Sunday Times, which includes the following statements:

1. The Highways Agency estimated that there were at least 42,000 collisions between deer and vehicles each year.

2. The UK deer population has more than doubled in the past decade to two million.

3. The muntjac has earned itself the name 'Asbo bambi' and its numbers are increasing more rapidly than for other types of deer. [This claim appears to be wholly insubstantiated and I shall not dwell on it further].

4. The cost of damage and injury caused by collisions between cars and deer (it's unclear whether they mean 'all deer' or 'muntjac deer') is £10 million a year.

I'm sure Dearieme will have some valuable anecdotal on what the best speed is to hit a deer (depending on its size), i.e. fast enough to ensure a clean kill on the one hand but not so fast as to render it to an inedible pulp on the other, but those statistics don't make sense as they have been culled (pun intended) from at least two quite separate sources (two of which are referred to in the article):

The Highways Agency says

- Estimated total deer population in England is 700,000 deer (I suppose it's possible that there are twice as many in S, W and NI, thus reconciling with the two million figure)

- there are an estimated 34,000 to 60,000 deer-vehicle-collisions ('DVCs') every year.

- the percentage of DVCs by type of deer involved are fallow (40%), roe (32%), and muntjac (25%), with red, sika, and Chinese water deer contributing less than 3%. In Scotland, where fallow are far less widespread, roe (69%) and red (25%) are most commonly recorded in DVCs.

The People's Trust for Endangered Species (2011 report) says:

- Invasive deer species are generally on the increase, as are native deer. Muntjac are expanding their range the most rapidly of all UK deer, and account for 22% of road traffic accidents involving deer in England alone, with an economic impact estimated at more than £10 million per year.

The Telegraph said (two years ago)

The deer population in Britain has risen sharply in recent years and is now between 1.5 and 2 million. The boom in numbers has lead to an increasing number of motorists being injured in collisions with the animals on the road.

Even assuming that they aren't all just quoting each other's figures, the 40,000 DVCs seems rather on the high side, that would mean that about one in five hundred motorists has a DVC every year, i.e. by the end of your motoring life, one in ten motorists will have hit a deer, but just about plausible. I've no idea where the £10 million for cost of accidents is from, that would average out at £250 per accident, which appears to be on the low side. Or maybe the £10 million just relates to the one quarter of DVCs involving muntjac, which works out at £1,000 cost per accident (much more plausible).

But now we know, or at least we know that we don't know.