West Virginia Is No. 1 In Deer Collisions

After being No. 50 in so many national surveys of economics, education and social condition, it is good to see that West Virginia is finally No. 1 in something: deer strikes.

According to State Farm Insurance, West Virginia drivers have a 1 in 41 chance of hitting a deer, meaning it is slightly more likely that a resident will hit a deer than vote for Hillary Clinton.

Pennsylvania is No. 3 in the nation with 1 in 67 odds, while Maryland, thanks to the Democratic leadership in Annapolis, only clocks in at 25th.

Living and having grown up in West Virginia, I don't doubt this for a second. I am only mildly joking when I say that at dusk you have to drive with a spotter in the car on the lookout for deer, much like the ocean liners of old had someone in the crow's nest looking for icebergs.

And the odds are also thought to be somewhat low because the numbers only include people who file insurance claims, meaning that the vehicle has to be marginally more valuable than the deer, which in the Mountain State is by no means a given.

So the odds of hitting a deer in West Virginia are about the same at the moment as they are for the New York Giants winning the Super Bowl - in other words, not terribly unlikely.

But at least West Virginia road crews go around picking up the dead deer, something that can't be said for Pennsylvania.

I think that one day we will learn that Pennsylvania and the CIA were involved in an ultra-secret experiment on the human psyche monitoring the effects of seeing a mammalian corpse on the side of the road every 30 seconds. (I will say that it seems to have gotten better lately, which, in some weird way, leaves me a bit disappointed - like we've lost a bit of Americana.)

West Virginia officials say the odds might also be skewed because the highway department only counts deer that it is called to remove from public property.

So, if a deer just happens to be standing by the side of the road and suffers a coronary event, it becomes part of the statistics.

In polling circles, this is known as a false positive, although wild animals are a lot better about dying of natural causes in private than humans. A deer would never choke to death on a steak in a crowded restaurant, to give one example.

This is not to suggest that there is any dignity in getting hit by a vehicle. A Herald-Mail Media story this week quoted a West Virginia body shop spokeswoman as saying a Ford Explorer once cut a deer in two, with half of it ending up inside the car along with the driver.

You don't want that. If you are unfortunate enough to hit a deer, you want it to be passenger-side fender, sending it cleanly off the road like a cue ball knocking a stripe into the corner pocket.

You don't want half a deer - I don't care which half - sitting in the seat next to you in a pose that is not likely to fade from your memory for some time.

But maybe West Virginia should do with deer what New Hampshire does with moose. That state posts the running total of annual moose collisions on highway signs, much like McDonald's used to keep tabs on the number of burgers they sold.

The purpose is to put drivers on alert, I suppose, and it does get your attention because you're not going to cut a moose in half; a moose is going to cut you in half. And he doesn't care what your national ranking is.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist. Reach him at [email protected].