How Likely Are You to Hit an Animal in Colorado?
As I sit here now, and I'm knocking on wood as I type this, I have never had a collision with an animal while driving my car. Sure, I've accidentally run over a squirrel or two, and I've felt bad about it ever since, but I've never had the gruesome experience of colliding with something like a deer ever in my life. If you happen to hear a knock at the door right now, that's just me again.
You may be asking yourself how I've managed to avoid such an awful scenario. Is it because I'm a defensive driver? Is it because I'm a great driver? While the answer to both of those questions is, "yes," it turns out that it may have something to do with where I have lived in my life.
State Farm does an annual animal collision study, and Stacker.com used that data to rank each of the 50 states (and DC) by how often we're colliding with our furrier friends on the roadways. Out of all fifty states, Colorado ranks at number 41 on the list, with the odds of hitting an animal with your car in the Centennial State currently sitting at a paltry 1 in 204. That works out to about 0.49% of Colorado drivers having a close encounter with road kill.
Now, as to how this pertains to me and my streak: not one of the four states that I have lived in over the past 15 years ranks in the top 30 on this list, and none of them have an animal collision likelihood higher than 1%. Those states would be Colorado (0.49%), New York (0.71%), Florida (0.25%), and Connecticut (0.43%). So, it may not be that I'm particularly good at avoiding animals on the roads, but perhaps I lived in states where the animals are smart enough to stay off of said roads. Personally, I'm going to assume it's me.
So, which states are the most likely to bring you head-to-head with a goat or something while you're on your way to work? Check out the gallery below to see how every state, and DC, ranked.