At dusk on a rural highway you strike a deer that was standing in the lane. The animal is down at the roadside and your car is drivable. What is the correct course of action?

Why C is correct

A wildlife collision is a reportable traffic incident, and the duties after it mirror those after any crash: stop safely out of the traffic flow, make the scene visible with hazard lights, and report it so the dead or injured animal is removed before it becomes a hazard for the next driver. The injured animal is the least predictable element at the scene — a hurt deer or elk is powerful, terrified and dangerous to approach, and well-meaning drivers are injured every year trying to assist or move one. Distance, hazard lights and a phone call are the entire toolkit.

Why the other options are wrong

A. Drag the deer off the roadway with your hands to prevent a secondary crash

Dragging an injured deer with bare hands puts you in contact with hooves, antlers and an animal whose only remaining plan is violence, and it moves the hazard only partway off a road your body is now lying across. It is a job for responders with equipment and gloves.

B. Approach the animal to assess whether it can stand and continue moving

Approaching a wounded wild animal is the one action that reliably converts a vehicle incident into a personal injury. Injured large animals charge, kick and gore; there is no assessment worth the approach.

D. Drive on without stopping; striking an animal carries no reporting duty

Driving on fails both duties: the crash goes unreported, and the animal — possibly alive and immobile in the lane — stays in the road for the next vehicle at dusk speed. The reporting requirement exists substantially for that second car.

On the road

A whitetail meets a headlight on a plains two-lane at dusk and the impact puts it in the verge, legs moving. The driver stops clear of the lane, hazards on, and calls the highway patrol from a hundred feet away. The dispatcher sends a crew; the driver's report puts a milepost on the file. Nobody approaches the animal, and the second car through that corner twenty minutes later meets a clear road.

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