Knoxville, Ia. — This column carries a Knoxville dateline, but it could be replaced by any one of a half-dozen places I've driven through in the last few weeks.

I go with Knoxville because that's the location of the most terrifying of my recent close encounters with deer.

It was around dawn. I was driving the speed limit and watching the road and ditches. Three of the buggers were in front of me in, oh, maybe a second. I slammed on the brakes, tires screeching, and the deer, bless them, sauntered onto the shoulder of the highway. The third one appeared to be grinning at me. How I missed it, I'll never know.

Then there was the one in Washington County that came running across a field, in the middle of the day, into the ditch and across the road in front of me. And the one south of Ames that bolted across the interstate. That's just me in the last two weeks, and I'm not counting the ones that weren't close.

State Farm Insurance reports the number of deer-vehicle accidents in Iowa has increased 12 percent over the last five years. The company's research shows there's a 1 in 105 chance a typical Iowa driver will hit a deer in the next year - about the same odds as being audited by the IRS. Iowa ranks fourth behind West Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the likelihood of a driver hitting a deer.

It's bad everywhere in Iowa, worse in some places than others.

Talk about worse. You could live in Iowa County, where one of every three vehicle accidents this year has been deer-related.

The Williamsburg Journal Tribune even has a part of its county report set aside for deer accidents. On Oct. 11, a van hit a deer, it reports. Damage to the vehicle: $2,200. Two days later, a Ford Focus hit a deer. That one caused $3,500 in damage to the vehicle. The list goes on, nearly one a day, each terrifying collision causing more than $2,000 damage to the cars and trucks.

The most spectacular deer story in the last couple of weeks comes from Burlington, where a deer crashed through the closed front door of Deery Brothers Collision Center, an auto body repair business.

The buck, bleeding and disoriented, thrashed around the office for a while, unnerving employees, before it lay down on the floor and mercifully died.

Somebody hit a deer on Interstate Highway 380 near North Liberty a couple of hours earlier the same day. Four other vehicles spun out and the road was closed until officers cleaned up the mess.

Deer were plastered all over the front bumpers of cars and trucks in the Des Moines area Friday morning, according to the traffic report on the radio.

Iowa City hired sharpshooters. Urbandale, Ames, Muscatine and several other Iowa cities have their own special deer seasons.

Cedar Rapids is in the fourth year of an "urban deer hunting" program, allowing bow hunters to take deer on private property in the city.

Hunters with special licenses check in their deer at any Cedar Rapids fire station. Battalion Chief Larry Stusak says the program is helping reduce the number of deer-related vehicle accidents.

"The numbers of accidents are down here," he said. "So far this year, about 180 deer have been taken. If it continues at that rate, we'll equal or surpass the numbers taken in previous years. The license allows you to take does. A hunter who kills five does in one season is eligible to purchase a buck license. Forty-one hunters are eligible for buck tags this year."

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources insists the deer population is down and says that the number of the animals killed on roads last year was 8 percent lower than in 2006. But the Iowa Department of Transportation reports 12 people were killed in deer-related accidents in 2007, double the previous five-year average. Ten of the 12 involved motorcycles.

So, the deer numbers are down and deaths are up.

The experts are right when they tell you nothing good can happen if you swerve to miss a deer. You're also asking for it if you look down to mess with the radio, dial the phone or trim your fingernails. That stuff is a bad idea any time of the year. Do it now and you might just get a grille full of Bambi.

For the next month or so, it's a good idea keep your eyes open and be ready to slam on the brakes.