It's almost deer season, in two ways; here's how likely a vehicle-deer crash is in your state

Photo from Buffalo News via AP

Deer season is almost upon us. But many deer will be killed by motor vehicles, not by guns. And indirectly, they will kill some of the unfortunate motorists in front of which they jump. "They kill more Americans than any other animal," Karen Brulliard reports for The Washington Post. The danger time is "the next three months, when deer are friskily roaming around in search of mates to make fawns with." (Or, "with which to make fawns," if you follow the grammar, as we did at first.)

"Each year, deer in the United States are involved in more than more than 1 million collisions that cause more than 200 human deaths," Bulliard writes. "They also cost a lot of money, according to State Farm, the country’s top auto insurer, which says the average claim hovers around $4,000."

Each year, State Farm uses its claim data from the previous fiscal year to come up with rankings for the likeliest states for collisions with deer. "The most perilous state is West Virginia, whose drivers have a 1 in 41 chance," Bulliard notes. Here's the State Farm map (click on it for a larger version):