Driving In Texas Is More Dangerous During A Full Moon, As Vehicle Collisions With Wildlife Rise By Over 45%, New Research Suggests
Is driving during a full moon risky? Well, there are more dangers than you think, especially for the animals that come out at night.
In Texas, vehicle collisions with wildlife increased by 45.8 percent during a full moon compared to a new moon. The spike was more prominent in rural areas than in urban areas.
To come to this conclusion, researchers collected collision data across Texas over a period of 10 years and compared how many took place during the full moon and the new moon, when the night is totally dark.
Previously, studies have shown a correlation between wildlife collisions and the full moon in other regions, such as Canada, Spain, and Lithuania. So, the research team wanted to see if the same would hold true in Texas.
“I compared really dark nights without moon illumination (new moon) to really dark nights with the full moon illumination,” said Kentaro Iio, a co-author of the new study and a former student at Texas A&M University.
“If you include other lunar phases in the analysis, they appear on the horizon at different times each day, making it more difficult for true apples-to-apples comparisons.”
While there was an average increase of almost 46 percent in wildlife-vehicle collisions during the full moon, there was no major rise in vehicle-vehicle collisions or vehicle-pedestrian ones.
Some areas saw particularly significant increases in collisions on nights with a full moon, including the High Plains, South Texas, Central Texas, and the Upper East regions.
The spikes in collisions ranged from 57.8 percent to 125 percent. The researchers suggested that the high increases in wildlife collisions could be due to several reasons, such as driver fatigue at night and more wildlife activity during the full moon.
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“Although the illumination is better, it’s still nighttime,” said Dominique Lord, a co-author of the study and a professor at Texas A&M University.
“When you drive at night, I’m not sure the illumination from the various perspectives is so much greater compared to daytime.”
It is likely that rural areas have a higher rate of collision than urban ones because there is less wildlife and more light pollution in cities and towns. The light may weaken the full moon’s influence on wildlife activity.
When an animal is hit by a vehicle, they face almost certain death. Depending on the size of the animal, a crash can be hazardous to the driver and passengers as well.
Collisions with moose can be incredibly dangerous because they have long legs and heavy bodies that tend to hit windshields directly.
The research team hopes that these findings will help reduce wildlife collisions and raise awareness of taking extra caution when driving during bright nights in Texas.
The study was published in the journal Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.
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