Deer Collision Season in Arkansas

1 in 135, according to State Farm’s 2025-2026 analysis of animal collision claims, which ranks Arkansas 28th of 51 (the 50 states and the District of Columbia) and places it in the medium likelihood category. The national figure is 1 in 145. That is a lower likelihood than 1 in 95 in the 2024-2025 edition.

27 from 2015 to 2024, about 2.7 a year, with 27 deaths, according to NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System. That is 0.5 percent of all fatal crashes in the state, and 25th among the 50 states by count. FARS counts crashes with any animal, not deer alone.

Nationally, State Farm names November, October and December as the peak months for large animal collisions. June and November tie for the most fatal animal crashes in Arkansas, 5 each of 27 across the ten years. The deer rut in Arkansas runs October 1 to December 31. Peak, as the agency describes it: mid to late November in most of the state.

The deer rut in Arkansas runs October 1 to December 31. Peak, as the agency describes it: mid to late November in most of the state. That is the timing the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission publishes, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ties the autumn collision peak to the rut, when deer are most active.

About an hour. On November 7, 2027, sunset in Little Rock moves from 6:11 PM on the Saturday to 5:10 PM on the Sunday, computed with the U.S. Naval Observatory method.

Mostly after dark. Of Arkansas’s 27 fatal animal crashes from 2015 to 2024, 59 percent happened in the dark and 15 percent at dusk or dawn, and 37 percent happened between 5 PM and midnight.

White-tailed deer range across the Ozark and Ouachita hills and the Delta farmland, and rural two lane highways carry most of the state’s driving between them.