Where do drivers have the best chance of hitting a deer with their vehicles? According to data from the State Farm Insurance Company, it’s West Virginia, where a driver’s odds of hitting a whitetail in the next 12 months are one in 40.
 
This marked the sixth consecutive year West Virginia has held the dubious distinction as the state with the best odds for drivers to hit deer with their cars and pickups. During the past 12 months, chances actually increased for drivers from the Mountain State to meet a whitetail head-on on the roadways, up from one in 48 the previous year.
 
Coming in at No. 2 this year is South Dakota, where the likelihood of a specific vehicle striking a deer is one in 68. Rounding out the Top 5 are Iowa at one in 71.9, Michigan at one in 72.4; Pennsylvania with one in 76.The remaining Top 10 (in order) include Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arkansas and North Dakota.
 
The state where motorists are least likely to smack a deer is Hawaii.
 
See the entire state-by-state statistics here.
 
The number of deer-related collisions in the United States has increased by 7.7 percent during the last year, the insurance company reports. This jump comes after a 3-year period during which these collisions dropped 2.2 percent.
 
State Farm estimates 1.23 million collisions caused by the presence of deer occurred in the United States between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012.The average property damage cost of these incidents during the final half of 2011 and the first half of 2012 was $3,305, up 4.4 percent from the year before.
 
The probability that any single licensed driver in the United States was behind the wheel during one of those 1.23 million crashes also increased from 1 in 183 last year, to 1 in 171, approximately equal to the odds of being audited by the Internal Revenue Service next tax season.
 
State Farm’s data shows that November is the month during which deer-vehicle encounters are most likely. More than 18 percent of all such mishaps take place during the 30 days of November. October is the second-most likely month for a crash involving a deer and a vehicle. December is third.
 
Here at The Headline Hunter blog, we think all these statistics point to one important fact that the folks at State Farm neglected to address—at least directly: We need to hunt more.