What to Do If You Hit a Deer: Safety First, Then the Record

If you hit a deer, get the car off the road if you can, turn on the flashers, and stay buckled inside. Leave the animal alone. Whether police must be called depends on your state's injury and damage rules.

Fall is when this happens most. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation says deer crashes "tend to peak during the months of October and November", during the white-tailed deer mating season known as the rut. It adds that they are most frequent around dawn and dusk. In Wisconsin alone, the department counted 17,432 deer crashes in 2024, in which 707 people were injured and 9 were killed, 7 of them motorcyclists.

Nationally, a 2008 Federal Highway Administration report to Congress estimated "between one and two million" wildlife-vehicle collisions a year in the United States, and said deer account for a majority of them where data are available. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety counts 210 deaths from collisions with animals in 2024, up from 89 in 1975.

This guide does not say who is at fault for any crash.

The first minutes after hitting a deer: off the road, flashers on, seat belt on

Wisconsin's advice on what to do when you hit a deer starts with the car, not the animal. Its fact sheet says to "get your vehicle safely off the road if possible. Turn on the vehicle's emergency flashers and contact law enforcement."

The same fact sheet says: "Generally, it's safest to stay buckled up inside your vehicle. Walking along a highway is always dangerous as you could be struck by another vehicle."

The reason is the next crash, not this one. IIHS notes that many of the fatal animal crashes it counts "involve secondary impacts that are more severe, such as colliding with another vehicle or a tree." A car stopped on a dark shoulder, or still partly in a lane, is the hazard now.

• If anyone is hurt, call 911.
• If the car cannot be moved out of a lane, call 911 and tell the dispatcher exactly where the car is.
• If the car is off the road and no one is hurt, the flashers stay on and the seat belt stays fastened while you make the calls and notes below.

The rest of this guide follows that order, with outside photos last.

Leave the deer where it is, even if it is still moving

A deer that was hit may be on the road, in the ditch, or gone. If it is down but alive, the two state agencies quoted here agree: stay away from it. Wisconsin's fact sheet puts it in seven words: "Don't attempt to move an injured deer."

Pennsylvania's Game Commission urges drivers "to maintain their distance because some deer might recover and move on." If a deer does not move on, or poses a public safety risk, the Game Commission encourages drivers to report it to one of its region offices or to local law enforcement. If the animal must be put down, the agency says it will direct the proper person to do so.

Two things drivers often want to do run against that guidance: pulling the animal off the road by hand, and walking up to check whether it is still alive. A deer blocking a lane is a hazard that police or the wildlife agency handle.

Do you have to call the police if you hit a deer? It depends on the state

There is no single national rule. Each state sets its own trigger for notifying police after a crash, and some add a separate report to a state agency. Three states show how different the triggers are.

Both the Wisconsin and the California property thresholds are worded as damage to the property of any one person. Wisconsin's transportation department also tells drivers who hit a deer to contact law enforcement.

Pennsylvania adds a wildlife point. Its Game Commission says "a driver who hits a deer with a vehicle is not required to report the accident to the Game Commission." That line is about the wildlife agency only. Section 3746 in the table is the separate rule for notifying police. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also add the driver's written report to the state when police do not handle the crash: within 10 days in Wisconsin, five in Pennsylvania.

Outside these three states, the triggers, dollar amounts, and deadlines vary. Many drivers who are unsure call the local police non-emergency number from the car and ask what the department wants for a deer strike with no injuries. Writing down the time of the call, the name of the person you spoke with, and what you were told keeps a record of the answer.

If an officer comes, note the officer's name, badge number, and agency, and ask for the report or incident number. Our guides to getting and reading a police report and to a crash with no police report cover what happens next in each case.

What you can record without leaving your seat

Much of the record of a deer strike can be made with the doors closed and the belt on.

• The time. Your phone's clock, or the timestamp on the first photo, fixes it. Write it down as well.
• The exact place. A screenshot of your map app with your location pin shows the road and the spot. Note the direction you were driving.
• The nearest mile marker, if one is visible in your headlights or mirrors. The federal sign manual calls these reference location signs and says they exist in part "to provide a means for identifying the location of emergency incidents and traffic crashes." It gives a dispatcher a precise location.
• A voice memo of what you saw and heard, recorded while it is fresh: where the deer came from, whether there was more than one, and what happened in the seconds before impact.
• The dashcam clip, if you have one. Many dashcams record in a loop over older footage, so saving the file before driving on keeps it.
• Light, weather, and road surface as you saw them: a dark stretch or streetlights, fog or rain, wet leaves or a dry road. One sentence in your notes app is enough.

What to photograph once you are off the road and safe

Photos outside the car come last. They make sense only when the car is fully off the road, traffic is clear enough to stand away from it, and no one needs help. If any of that is not true, the photos can wait or be skipped. A record made from the seat is still a record.

1. The damage, wide and close. A wide shot shows the whole front or side of the car. Close shots show each dent, crack, and broken light. A shot from about six feet away, at an angle, shows how high on the car the impact was.
2. The marks the animal left. Hair, fur, or tissue caught in the grille, bumper, mirror, or wheel well shows what the car struck, even if the animal is gone.
3. The animal, only from a distance. Use zoom from where you stand, or skip it. A photo is never a reason to walk up to an injured deer.
4. The location. The mile marker, a road sign, an exit sign, or a cross street ties the photos to a place.
5. A deer-crossing sign, if one is nearby. The federal sign manual lists the deer warning sign, code W11-3, among signs used to warn of "locations where unexpected entries into the roadway might occur or where shared use of the roadway by pedestrians, animals, or equestrians might occur."
6. Light, weather, and the road. A photo facing the way you were driving shows the lighting, any fog or rain, curves, and whether the surface was wet or covered in leaves.
7. Skid marks and debris, from the shoulder only. Pieces of headlight or trim on the road show where the impact happened. Leave them where they are.

Our guide to how fast each type of accident evidence disappears explains why photos taken the same day hold details that are gone a week later.

If it was a moose or another large animal

Deer are the most common large animal in these crashes. IIHS cites a review of 147 fatal animal crashes in nine states in which 77% of the struck animals were deer, with cattle, horses, dogs, and bears among the others.

A moose strike is different in one important way. A CDC report on Maine crashes from 2000 to 2004 explains that "a moose usually is struck in the legs, causing its body to roll onto the hood of the vehicle", which often collapses the windshield and roof. In that period Maine recorded 3,400 collisions with moose and 18,289 with deer, yet 14 of the 17 deaths from animal collisions were in moose crashes.

The steps after striking a moose are the same as for a deer: off the road if the car can move, flashers on, 911 if anyone is hurt, and distance from the animal. If the car cannot be driven, that is one of Pennsylvania's triggers for notifying police in the table above.

A farm animal or a pet is a different situation, because it has an owner. That raises questions this guide does not cover. If one is loose or hurt on the road, it is a hazard that police are typically called about.

Before you drive away after hitting a deer

Before driving on, a walk around the car from the shoulder side, with traffic clear, checks the parts a front-end impact can damage:

• headlights and turn signals, which you need to be seen on a dark road
• the hood, which should latch fully closed
• fluid on the ground under the engine
• a bent fender or bumper touching a tire
• cracks in the windshield that block your view

If any of these is in doubt, many drivers wait for a tow rather than drive. In Pennsylvania, a car that must be towed is also one of the triggers for notifying police.

Before leaving, a few lines in your notes app, written while it is fresh, finish the record: what you saw, the calls you made, and who you spoke with. Keep the original photo and video files rather than edited or cropped copies.

If a stiff neck, a headache, or back pain appears in the hours or days after, many people note when it started and see a clinician. Our car accident checklist and our step-by-step guide to the first hours after a crash cover the rest of the at-scene list.

Frequently asked questions