At no time are the odds higher for deer-vehicle collisions than for about the next four to six weeks.

"It's an annual thing that towards the end of October we start seeing the number of accidents rise," said Mike Miller, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism information chief. "It usually peaks around the 18th to 20th of November, but we'll still have accidents into the end of the month."

Miller said around 600 accidents per day can occur at peak times.

The Kansas Department of Transportation said 9,109 deer-vehicle collisions were reported in 2010. That's about on par with most years, though Kansas has had about 10,000 accidents some years.

Miller said the annual breeding season, called the "rut," deserves much of the blame. It's a time of increased movement of all kinds of deer.

Many of the road kills are fawns just a few months old.

Chased away by the doe or an attending buck, the young deer are on their own for the first time and inexperienced with things like roads and vehicles.

Read the complete story at kansas.com