Deer In Illinois: Here Are The Odds You’ll Hit One While Driving

Whenever I hear someone declare their love of anything and everything having to do with the fall season, my mind goes back to a friend who used to feel the same way...until he hit a deer just outside of Rockford, resulting in injuries to him, a totaled SUV, and a very deceased white-tail deer.

My friend's love of fall soon became a fear of fall. At least the driving around near deer-infested areas part of fall. He openly admitted to having serious anxiety about driving at this time of year after the accident.

If you've lived here in Illinois, especially Northern Illinois for any length of time, you know that now through the end of the year can be even more dangerous on Illinois' roads because of deer out roaming for a mate or trying to escape deer hunters.

But, what are the actual odds you'll be the person to hit one?

Since We Just Entered Deer Mating Season, Your Odds Of An Up-Close-And-Personal Encounter With A Deer Are Higher Than At Any Other Point In The Year

After reading about a horrific crash last year during deer mating season in Indiana in which 3 people were killed when an SUV struck a deer, crossed the center median, and then crashed head-on with a pickup truck, I began wondering what the odds were of something like that happening to any of us who drive Northern Illinois' roads.

In the United States as a whole, drivers have about a 1 in 116 chance of hitting a deer (or other animal). Here in Illinois, the odds are 1 in 148, State Farm found in its annual deer-vehicle collision study .

West Virginia is the state with the greatest likelihood of animal collisions for the 14th year in a row, the study shows. There's a 1 in 37 chance of a driver hitting a deer or other animal in the Mountaineer State. In 2019, State Farm had 7,721 auto claims for animal collisions in West Virginia.

The other states in the top ten include Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Michigan.

If you're looking to move to a state where your chances of an animal encounter go way down, you'll want to look at Hawaii. Hawaii is the state where it's least likely for a driver to hit an animal, with a reported rate there of 1 in 642. California and Arizona are the second and third least-likely states for animal collisions.