Post Office Counts the Cost of Wild Animal Accidents

Post Office Car Insurance is advising UK drivers to take extra care on the UK’s roads as we enter a peak period of wild animal related road accidents.

Every year an estimated one million animals, including deer, foxes, badgers, otters and squirrels, are killed on UK roads, with many more suffering fatal injuries but crawling away from the roadside to die.

It’s not only animal lives which are at stake; it’s estimated that deer accidents alone account for over 500 personal injuries, including over 100 serious or fatal injuries. And costs for repairs to motor vehicles involved in animal collisions are estimated at over GBP 17m.

The Spring season signals the start of a peak period for road accidents involving badgers and Roe Deer – road accidents account for an estimated 100,000 deaths of badgers and deer every year. As we move into Spring, the Post Office is working with The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the Deer Initiative to raise awareness of how to avoid accidents with wild animals, and what to do in the event of a collision.

It’s not just country roads where drivers need to beware of wild animals crossing – each year an estimated 20,000 urban foxes are killed on roads in UK towns and cities.

Birds are also at risk with an estimated ten million killed on the roads each year. Three million are pheasants and for increasingly rare species such as barn owls, a worrying 3,000 juvenile birds are killed by motor vehicles annually.

According to the PTES’s ‘Mammals on Roads’ survey, rabbits account for up to half of overall animal casualties, with the following creatures also accounting for tens of thousands of road deaths:

• Foxes – 100K Estimated annual road fatalities
• Deer – 50K Estimated annual road fatalities
• Badgers – 50K Estimated annual road fatalities
• Hedgehogs – 15K Estimated annual road fatalities