Russ Zimmer

@RussZimmer

Keep your head on a swivel. They're all over the place, ready to jump out in front of you when you least expect it.

It's deer mating season, but instead of making a love connection sometimes these wild animals meet with the grill of your sedan. Encounters like that are almost always bad for your vehicle, a big negative for the deer's health and can be a threat to human life.

The Asbury Park Press found that from 2011 through 2015 more than 7,000 crashes on the Shore were animal related — a designation that includes dogs and possums, but is overwhelmingly deer. To do this, we analyzed more than 177,000 crash reports that law enforcement agencies in Monmouth and Ocean counties fed to the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

YOUR TURN: Tell us in the comments or on Facebook about any crashes or close calls you've had with deer.

As one might guess, given its traffic load, speed limit and the "park" in its name, the Garden State Parkway is the most frequently named roadway in car-deer crash reports.

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The Press drilled those numbers down even further and found that a 13-mile stretch of the Parkway in Monmouth County was the most common location for these kinds of incidents — 429 during those five years.

Watch the video above to see how one deer responded to being struck and scroll down to see the car-deer crash hotspots in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

In fact, within one mile of the Parkway — where Holmdel and Hazlet meet — there have been more car-deer crashes (54) than any other single location on the Shore.

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Some other findings from the data:

The most typical car-deer crash would occur at 5:15 p.m. (evening rush hour) on November 18.

It's not always just the deer that suffers: 359 people have been injured and four people have died, including a state trooper in 2015.

Monmouth County has about 950 of these crashes every year, while Ocean County usually has about half as many.

Jackson, with 649 total during those five years, is tops in Ocean County, while Freehold Township — 545 such crashes — leads in Monmouth.

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Here are the worst spots in each county:

MONMOUTH COUNTY

1. Route 18 in Colts Neck, 61 crashes

2. Route 18 in Marlboro, 61 crashes

3. Route 33 at Millhurst Road in Manalapan, 59 crashes

4. Route 33 at West Main Street in Freehold Township, 25 crashes

5. Route 79 at Route 520 in Marlboro, 22 crashes

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OCEAN COUNTY

1. I-195 in Jackson, 85 crashes

2. US 9 in Eagleswood, 24 crashes

3. Lacey Road in Lacey, 12 crashes

4. Toms River Road at Lakehurst Avenue in Jackson, 12 crashes

5. Route 37 at Bimini Drive in Toms River, 11 crashes

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com