Many thousands of hunters are out in the field on this deer opener Saturday, and this is also peak time for vehicle crashes with deer. MN-DOT’s Kevin Gutknecht advises, “Just watch the ditches and keep your eyes open, and… if you’re going down a road and you see a deer and you’re gonna hit it, don’t swerve.” If you do, you could end up in the path of another vehicle, go in the ditch or hit a tree. And if you see a deer, remember there’s probably at least one more right behind it.
Between 2013 and 2015 there were over 61-hundred deer-vehicle crashes in Minnesota, resulting in over 900 injuries and 15 deaths. Late season motorcyclists are at particularly high risk and officials say they should avoid riding at times of low light.