With a flash of gray fur in the headlights, a deer bounded in front of the cruiser that Dakota County Sheriff's Deputy Sharon Drews was driving in rural Hampton Township recently.
The impact damaged the front end of her squad car; Drews was not hurt.
And the damage to the car was significantly reduced by push bumper grill guards that the department has installed on all marked patrol cars.
At a cost of about $300 apiece, the decision to buy them for the fleet came easy for the Sheriff's Office as it reviewed costs for such accidents, said Chief Deputy Dave Bellows. That was three years ago.
"We talked with our fleet folks, too, and they were telling us that prior to using these things, damage to a squad hitting a deer could be $6,000 to $8,000," he said. "These guards, when we've had a deer accident, have been reducing the damage to more in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. So clearly, these things paid for themselves immediately."
"It's unfortunate, but the areas that we drive are especially dangerous and plentiful with deer, and so it's not unusual in a given year that our deputies hit a couple, three deer," Bellows said.
The savings with the push bumpers and grills are not only significant monetarily, but also for cutting down the time when squad cars are out of commission for repairs, he said.
In southern Dakota County, 2009 appears to be one of the busiest in years for deer-vehicle collisions. So far, at least 68 such accidents have taken place in southern Dakota County. In 2004, for instance, there were just 33, Bellows said. The tally for all of last year was 50.
