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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Highway safety officials want to remind drivers that it's still deer season.
Collisions with deer tend to increase as the weather gets bad in the mountains and the animals head to lower elevations.
The National Institute for Highway Safety estimates there are more than 1-point-5 (m) million car-deer accidents in the United States each year. Most of those accidents occurred in October through December.
The Utah Highway Patrol says there were more than two-thousand accidents involving a car hitting a deer or elk reported in 2003. This is the time of year when troopers start seeing a lot of crashes involving wildlife.
U-H-P says it's important to remember NOT to jerk the wheel when you see a deer on the road. The deer can cause serious damage to a car, but that's better than swerving off the road.
Three people were killed last month when the driver of a sport-utility vehicle swerved to miss a deer in Parleys Canyon.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
