The national cost-per-claim average nationally is $3,888, up 13.9 percent from 2013 when the average was $3,414.

The months a driver is most likely to collide with a deer in Nebraska, mostly because of mating and hunting seasons, are November, then December and October.

For the eighth year in a row, West Virginia tops the list of states where a collision is most likely, with 1 in 39 odds, followed by Pennsylvania, Montana, Iowa and South Dakota. Odds in the top two states are going up; the odds in Montana, Iowa and South Dakota are down.

Hawaii is at the bottom of the list, also for the eighth year in a row, with 1 in 10,281 odds.

Although disease was the biggest factor in the decline in collisions, Hams said, the fences along Interstate 80 approaching the Platte River near Ashland "are working great." There has been a dramatic drop in the numbers of deer hit by motor vehicles there, he said.

Nebraska's deer herd is now down to about what it was 10 or 12 years ago, Hams said, and that's more manageable.

"The herds were larger than we wanted, larger than landowners wanted and larger than motorists wanted," he said. "We had a hard time getting enough hunters to kill enough deer to reduce the herd."