The State We’re In
Oh, Deer,
What A Menace
There’s an emerging problem for
Tar Heel motorists that has
nothing to do with potholes or
speeding.
Deer darling across North Carolina
roads caused or contributed to between
8.000 and 9.000 accidents in 1994.
according to a recently released com¬
puter analysis of state traffic accident
reports.
“We had not looked at these figures
before, and frankly, 1 found them flab¬
bergasting," says Dr. Donald Reinfun.
deputy director of the University of
North Carolina Highway Safety
Research Center. “As many as 4 percent
of the crashes — that's one in every 25
— appear to have involved animals,
which almost always were deer."
Reinfur t and Senior Database Analyst
F.ric Rodgman of the I’NC center ran
computer evaluations of a sample of
19.931 motor vehicle crashes reported
across the state in 1994. The sample was
about 10 percent of the 199,209 crash¬
es that occurred that year.
“In our sample, we found 821 crashes
f
in which the investigating officer specif¬
ically mentioned the word ‘deer’ in his
narrative," Reinfurt says. “The number
probably would have been even higher
if we had pulled reports containing the
misspellings ‘dere’ or 'dear."’
The total also does not reflect acci¬
dents in which severely injured or killed
drivers could not report they swerved to
avoid hitting deer, he says.
No information was readily available
about the number of fatalities deer may
have caused. Reinfurt says. Researchers
also have not yet analyzed figures for
19115 or earlier years to show whether
motor vehicle crashes involving deer
have increased, although they suspect
they have.
The findings do not surprise Dr. ).
Richard Stewart, senior statistician at
the center and an advocate ol bicycle
helmets. “Back in the fall. I was riding
my bicycle home from work one
evening just around dark and thought I
heard gunshots oil in the distance.”
Stewart recalls. “Three deer came out
of the hushes, raced across the road.
and one knocked my front wheel out."
The researcher flipped onto the back
of his head and cracked his bicycle hel¬
met. He suffered scrapes, bruises, dizzi¬
ness and pain but considered himself
lucky not to have been injured more
severely.
North Carolina's deer population has
increased from 250,000 to 850.0(H) in
the past 20 years, says Scott Osborn, big
game program coordinator for the
North Carolina Wildlife Resources
Commission. In 1910. only 10.000 deer
roamed the state.
“I estimate that the 4(H) to 600 deer
we know are killed on highways each
year arc only about 10 percent of the
total." Osborn says. “In a lot of acci¬
dents, deer are not even hit. In others,
because they are tough animals, they
are not killed and often not even
injured."
Eighty bears also were killed on high¬
ways last year, most in the coastal plain.
Osborn says.
“We had more than 300.000 deer die
in North Carolina last year, including
180,000 taken by hunters." he adds.
Peak months for deer migration —
and likely automobile accidents involv¬
ing deer — are October through
December. Osborn says. Normally gre¬
garious bucks become aggressive and
territorial during the fall rut. driving
away younger bucks.
Dunn's Clapp New Director
Of N.C. Travel And Tourism
Gordon Clapp, a Duke University
alumnus who for years helped Maine
become a tourism dynamo in New
England, is hoping to do the same for
North Carolina.
Clapp, executive director of the
North Carolina Civil War Tourism
Council and former state travel direc¬
tor for Maine, became the new direc¬
tor of the North Carolina Travel and
Tourism Division last December,
replacing Ralph Peters, the retired
president of the AAA Carolina Motor
Club who was serving in the position
on an interim basis.
“Gordon will bring a fresh new per¬
spective to our state's tourism efforts
with his experience in the travel
industry and his interest in North
Carolina history." North Carolina
Secretary of
С о
m m crce
Dave Phillips
says. "Gordon
will continue
the efforts
Ralph Peters
has made to
prepare the
state’s travel
industry for the
next century."
The 63-year-old Dunn resident hits
worked for the past two years with the
state Department of Cultural
Resources and the North Carolina
Association of Convention and Visitor
Bureaus to educate people about the
state's Civil War heritage and to pro¬
mote its Civil Wai history to travelers
through his fledgling Civil War
Tourism Council. The Council, which
was founded by Clapp on a shoestring
budget, now has regular meetings and
a full-fledged hierarchy to help initi¬
ate travel programs for the state cen¬
tered around the Civil War.
/Vs director of tourism for the state
of Maine, Clapp coordinated an
advertising and public relations cam¬
paign that increased inquiries and vis¬
itors by more than one-third. He also
launched the state’s first comprehen¬
sive program that addressed tourism
marketing. Under his leadership.
Maine was the first state to establish a
travel agents’ advisory council and air¬
line advisory committee.
Clapp became the first travel and
tourism director for the New England
Governor’s Conference Inc., a board
made up ol the governors in the six-
state New England region.
Gordon Clabb
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