It's deer season: Deer-related vehicle crashes can be costly to repair

There are more than 17,000 deer-related wrecks per year in North Carolina — accidents that can be deadly and expensive to repair.

Ten years ago, headlights cost around $20 to replace, but today they can cost in the thousands.

Kenneth Locke has traveled Yarborough Road for years. Tuesday night around 2 a.m., a deer jumped in front of his red pickup truck.

Locke said the deer damaged one of his headlights, right fender and the side panel of the passenger side door. It also messed up the front end alignment.

The split-second incident caused between $1,600 and $1,800 worth of damage, Locke said.

"I locked up the breaks, and when I locked it up, I started sliding, and I saw it when it jumped," Locke said. "It slipped sideways when it jumped. The head hit. I knew it was a deer."

William Weslowski has been repairing vehicles for 35 years in Fayetteville and has repaired his share of wrecks caused by deer.

He said the damage can be very expensive to fix because of the new high-tech equipment that's now installed on vehicles, especially the headlights.

"The light system in the cars now are anywhere from halogen, which are the more standard light bulbs but are still in the $500 a piece range. You get the LEDs, but the self-leveling you start at $2,000," he said.

Weslowski said he's made repairs where deer have cause $8,00 to $10,000 worth of damage to vehicles.

Locke hopes his insurance covers most of the cost to make repairs to his trucks. He knows this accident could have been worse.

"The cop said if I didn't slide sideways, the deer would went through my windshield," Locke said. "I've seen them coming though my field, but I didn't ever think it would be me to hit one."