Deer collisions along the highway through my hometown is really costly.  Over one hundred deer get killed by vehicles every year in a stretch of road that is just over 10 miles long!  Why?  Because they migrate to the foot hills East of the road and then munch their way down toward the road eating alfalfa and orchard tree branches and suddenly find themselves on the edge of the road.  Deer do what deer do best and that is continue to want more to eat.  They look up and see more orchards on the other side of the road and so….clap, clap, clap…across the road they go!  BLAM, BUMP, SLAM, SMEAR, BREAK, TINKLE, CUSS!!!!

Another deer is killed and another car, truck, van, motorcycle or whatever is damaged.  Another insurance claim made.  And more costs incurred by you and I as well as the person who was insured (or not), because of the rate increases to cover the increasing cost of fixing broken vehicles.

And that says nothing about the cost of that deer!  They are a renewable resource here in the state of Utah, but why couldn’t a hunter have harvested it instead of it getting hit on the highway and left there to rot?  Was it a pregnant doe?  Probably.  And so, two or more deer are actually dieing instead of just the one you see laying there.  Sad.

So, here is my idea, and anyone of you reading this can follow up on it and make yourselves millions of dollars, because wildlife being killed by vehicles is not just happening here on highway 89-91.  It’s happening all over the world!

Produce a motion sensing machine, (they already are out there), that is strong enough to read motion out to say 200 yards.  Set two of these on either side of a pole.  One to sense in one direction parallel down the road, the other to sense in the other direction.  Each of these poles will have to have flashing yellow signs on top of them and when the sensor detects movement, the lights begin to flash and flash for say five minutes.  If no more sensing is detected after five minutes the flashing stops.

Place these poles every “whatever” yards apart down the sides of the roadways.  I would suggest the sensors overlap in their sensing distance to make sure you have the entire roadway covered.  Put them on both sides of the road way.

Since most of these vehicle/animal collisions happen just at evening, during the night or first thing in the twilight of morning, the flashing lights would show up very nicely.  As a motorist comes along and suddenly the lights begin to flash, they know there is something ahead that caused the detector to turn the lights on and they should respond by slowing the vehicle down.  If they don’t they are dumb crapollas and deserve to get crashed!

Sure these things would cost plenty to get implemented and many of them would need to be replaced during any given year, but think about how many crashes and dead animals will be avoided by these things!  To me, it would be worth the expense.  UDOT?  UTAH DWR?  Are you with me on this?

Bears Butt

Oct. 2011