Other counties with particularly high rates included Tyrrell, Hyde, Jones, Perquimans, Greene, Warren, Chatham, Franklin, Duplin and Washington. Those with the lowest were Graham, Jackson, New Hanover, Buncombe, Mecklenburg, Haywood, Henderson and Swain. Almost three-fourths occurred between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Still, we recommend that people drive slower at night where deer are likely to be, and if you see one run across the road, slow down because usually others are in the vicinity. N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles' records are useful because they enable researchers to study police narratives via computer and thus discover recurring driving problems, he said.
Few states have such good computerized records.
Only in about 2 percent of deer crashes did the investigating officer indicate that speed or alcohol was a factor, Reinfurt said. Usually speed or alcohol is a contributing factor in nearly 45 percent of single-vehicle accidents. Drivers ages 26 to 65 constitute 72 percent of those involved in deer accidents, as opposed to 59 percent of those involved in all single-vehicle mishaps, he said. North Carolina's deer population now stands at about 950,000, according to Scott Osborn, big game program coordinator at the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. In 1910, only 10,000 deer roamed the state, and in 1980, there were about 350,000.