Can Indiana deer read road signs?

[MichaelB]

A letter to the editor of NWI.COM (North West Indiana media)

A lot of deer get hit by cars west of Crown Point on U.S. 231. There are too many cars to have the deer crossing here. The deer crossing sign needs to be moved to a road with less traffic.

It is signed, but I'm not including the author's name. Link here

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[braumeister]

That letter has been all over the net for years, attributed to just about every small town paper you can imagine. I would bet that at least some of them are genuine, but the wording always seems to be pretty much the same every time.

On a related note, there is a small town near where we live that has a couple of deer crossing signs. Every year in December, someone goes out at night and pastes little (maybe one inch diameter) red dots on the deer's nose, indicating a Rudolph crossing. It always makes me laugh.

 

[Meadbh]

Canadian deer (and other animals) are unable to read signs. But they hear about it on the grapevine........

Crossing Structures

Animal Crossing Bridge over Trans-Canada Highway near Banff, Alberta | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Outdoors With Othmar Vohringer: Elk Crossing on Highway 1 in Banff National Park

 

[JPatrick]

On a related note, there is a small town near where we live that has a couple of deer crossing signs. Every year in December, someone goes out at night and pastes little (maybe one inch diameter) red dots on the deer's nose, indicating a Rudolph crossing. It always makes me laugh.

I feel a copy-cat mission coming on...Thanks for the tip beer man

 

[MichaelB]

That letter has been all over the net for years, attributed to just about every small town paper you can imagine. I would bet that at least some of them are genuine, but the wording always seems to be pretty much the same every time.

On a related note, there is a small town near where we live that has a couple of deer crossing signs. Every year in December, someone goes out at night and pastes little (maybe one inch diameter) red dots on the deer's nose, indicating a Rudolph crossing. It always makes me laugh.

I checked Snopes for urban legend reference and they didn't have anything, looked for a recent media publication and found this. Who knows...

 

[powerplay]

In 1980 I was working for the USACE. Shortly after Mt. St. Helens blew someone wrote a letter suggesting that concrete should be dumped into the crater to plug it up and prevent further eruptions. We thought it was pretty funny, but I think the person writing the letter was serious.

 

[GregLee]

... urban legend reference

Deer Crossing « JONATHAN TURLEY

And on page 12 of
The Exploding Toilet: Modern Urban Legends

By David Holt, Bill Mooney, Kevin Pope

Deer Crossing

A woman who had recently moved from Brooklyn to a semi-rural area in northwestern New Jersey called the local township administrative office to request the removal of the "Deer Crossing" sign on her road.

Her reason: too many deer were being hit by cars and she didn't want them to cross there anymore.
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[JOHNNIE36]

I heard about this problem with the deer crossing roads in dangerous places. I think they ought to form a committee and go have a talk with the deer. Making and moving signs gets expensive, especially in this economy.

 

[ls99]

Seems like a need for more wolf.

 

[Htown Harry]

Next thing you know, the writers will be complaining because the deer (or sheep or bears or...) are crossing from left-to-right and the sign has it backwards

Figure 2C-11 Long Description - MUTCD 2009 Edition - FHWA

"W11-3 is shown as a diamond-shaped sign with a symbol of a left-facing deer..."

 

[grasshopper]

 

[brewer12345]

Seems like a need for more wolf.

In New Jersey? Where we lived the county parks are totally overrun by deer. The county did a study and found that after opening one of the parks to bow and black powder hunting for a few years they counted something like 30 deer per square mile. They ended up closing the park for a couple weeks in the winter, handing the rangers shotguns and telling them to kill all the deer they could find. Having hiked through those parks,they could have hunted them down with a baseball bat.