OTTAWA — Like many rural drivers, Len Sabourin has hit a deer.
Two, in fact, at one time. He was in his pickup truck on a highway north of Gatineau.
“They just shot right out in front of me — I didn’t have time to react,� says the recreational vehicle dealer from Monkland, Ont., north of Cornwall.
It could as easily have happened close to home. Just down Hwy. 138 from Sabourin’s sales yard is a two-lane stretch — forest on one side, open land on the other — that ranks among the worst spots in Eastern Ontario for car-deer collisions.
Since radar detection systems were installed along that zone and at another trouble spot on Hwy. 416 near Kemptville, however, safety officials have watched drivers slow by an average 15 per cent when roadside warning lights flash.
They hope collision figures from the trial projects will show an even larger decrease and lend weight to proposals for radar systems at high-risk spots on Hwy. 417 near Ottawa.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,� says David Brake, traffic project specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, of the early results.
The costs of collisions between vehicles and wildlife in Canada could reach $200 million a year, according to a 2012 report by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation in Ottawa.
And there’s an uncharted toll in motorist deaths and injuries — usually in collisions with moose and other large animals, but also regularly in accidents with deer. On Christmas Day, 31-year-old Roy Khabbaz was killed when a deer struck by another car near Oxford Station, south of Ottawa, was thrown through his windshield.
In March, university students Madeleine Havelock, 21, and Thomas Guerette, 22, died in a two-car crash west of Richmond when Havelock swerved to avoid a deer.
Measures to reduce such collisions have been ineffective (fencing, warning signs) or useless (high-frequency whistles, roadside reflectors). But more sophisticated technology is showing promise. An infrared system installed in 2009 on the TransCanada Highway north of Sault Ste. Marie triggers warning lights for 30 seconds when moose or other animals cross the shoulders. The “break-the-beam� system, however, is unable to alert drivers to animals that stay in the road after the lights switch off.
The Eastern Ontario systems use radar sensors — two in the median along a 1.5-kilometre portion of Hwy. 416 near Kemptville and three on the shoulders of the two-kilometre stretch of Hwy. 138. Software interprets the signals to identify animals that pose a risk.
“The radar penetrates into the treeline,� says the MOT’s Brake. “As soon as the deer is out of the treeline. it’s monitoring it and activating the system, and it keeps the system active the entire time it’s tracking an animal,�
The Kemptville system was installed in April 2012 by AUG Signals, a Toronto radar specialist, at a cost of about $270,000. The $278,000 system on Hwy. 138 was installed last April by Montreal engineering firm Rotalec Inc. Both systems are solar-powered and both track the speed of any vehicles in the zone. The information is not shared with police, the MOT stresses.
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