It’s that time of year when you’re going to start running into a lot more deer — in fact, running into them literally, if you’re not careful.
As the days get shorter, deer have their mating season, New Jersey Newsroom reminds us. So in autumn, the deer start showing up in the damnedest places — notably, in front of your car.
A Medford Township man already died last month when the car in which he was riding hit a deer and went off the road in Galloway Township, according to the Press of Atlantic City.
Under the circumstances, it helps to remember a couple of things about deer. First of all, they’re dumb.
“In many instances, deer will wander closer to roads and may literally stop in the middle of a road, cross over and then re-cross,” New Jersey Newsroom said. “A motorist who spots a deer should slow down and pay attention to sudden movement. If the deer doesn’t move, don’t go around it. Wait until the road is clear. And if you spot one deer, be alert for others.
Second of all, deer panic. Just last month, one of them got into the music building at Rowan University, and smashed through some plate-glass windows, hurting itself so badly that it had to be put down.
So the onus is one humans to watch out for deer rather than the other way around — particularly as we construct more and more buildings where deer used to have free rein.
