Close Encounters Of The Antlered Kind On State Street In Newtown

NEWTOWN BOROUGH, PA — With deer mating season about to begin, motorists need to be on alert, especially when driving between 6 and 9 p.m. on the highways and byways of Pennsylvania.

Anyone who has driven in Pennsylvania at this time of year knows the danger from deer darting across the highway.

What you don’t expect to see is a deer racing down the sidewalk of a downtown street in the middle of the day.

As I was talking with Rich from Countryside Gallery Friday afternoon on the sidewalk in front of Marisa’s Boutique, a deer raced down the sidewalk on South State Street coming from the direction of Washington Avenue.

And he was booking.

As Rich and I spoke, he suddenly broke our conversation.

“Deer, deer, deer,” he said with increasing urgency.

Unclear what he was saying I took a step toward him. That’s when a four-point deer bolted down the sidewalk between me and a row of parked cars.

I was grateful to Rich for saving me from becoming Newtown’s first sidewalk deer strike.

So what happened to the deer? He continued booking down the sidewalk before veering onto South State Street at Centre Avenue. After that, we lost sight of him. I’m sure the crew outside of Starbucks got a good look as he dashed by.

I remember back in the 90s a deer crashed through the window of a South State Street store. I can’t remember which store it was, but I think it was 25 South State Street prior to Witchell’s.

The incident got me thinking about deer pedestrian accidents. While the internet is replete with car vs. deer collisions, I found very few reports involving deer vs. pedestrians probably because deer tend to steer clear of people.

There was, however, one interesting report from two months ago in nearby Northampton County.

A woman was taken to the hospital for a medical evaluation after a car struck a deer. The deer then ran into the woman who was walking nearby.

It happened in the village of Raubsville when an 18-year-old man was driving northbound on Rt. 611 when the front passenger side bumper of his car struck the deer. The impact sent the deer headed in a northeasterly direction where it struck the 55-year-old pedestrian along the road’s east shoulder, police said.

The woman and deer landed in a grassy area just off the east shoulder of the roadway, the report said.

Neither the driver nor his passenger were injured in the accident, however, police said the woman suffered a leg injury and was taken to the hospital for a medical evaluation.

As for the deer, the report said it raced away from the scene.

The more common collision is between deer and cars. And Pennsylvania consistently ranks as one of the top states for deer-vehicle collisions, according to AAA.

"We see a spike in motorists hitting deer in October, November, and December every year," said an AAA spokesperson. "Pennsylvania traditionally ranks in the top three states in the country for the number of deer strikes we see here annually. Locally in the Philadelphia five-county area, Bucks County, Chester County, and Montgomery County are three of the top ten counties in Pennsylvania where we see the most deer strikes."

If you have the unfortunate experience of hitting a deer, AAA said first and foremost, never approach the deer, move your vehicle off to the side of the road to a safe space, and call the police.