25 NJ Towns Where You’re Most Likely to Hit a Deer

If you've lived in New Jersey for more than five minutes, you've probably had that heart-stopping moment. You're driving home at dusk, and suddenly there's a deer standing in the middle of the road, staring at your headlights like it has nowhere better to be.

It happens a lot more than you'd think. According to New Jersey Department of Transportation crash data, there were 33,700 crashes involving an animal across the state from 2023 through 2025. That works out to more than 11,000 a year, or about 31 every single day. Deer are behind the vast majority of them.

READ MORE: NJ's Most Dangerous Towns For Teen Drivers

When Do Most Deer Crashes Happen in New Jersey?

And right now is the worst time of year. October through December is peak deer crash season in New Jersey, according to AAA Northeast. It's mating season, so deer are moving around more and paying a lot less attention. Once the clocks fall back on November 1, sunset lines up with the evening commute, which is exactly when deer are most active.

So where are you most likely to have a run-in? We dug into three years of official NJDOT crash data to find the 25 towns in New Jersey with the most animal-involved crashes. Some of the names won't surprise you. Hunterdon and Somerset County towns with lots of open land and wooded back roads show up all over the list.

Monmouth County Has the Most Deer Crashes in NJ

The Shore is not off the hook. Not even close. Monmouth County had more animal crashes than any other county in New Jersey, with 3,831 from 2023 through 2025. That's nearly 1,200 more than second-place Burlington County. Eight of the 25 towns on our list are in Monmouth or Ocean County.

Here are the 25 New Jersey towns where you're most likely to hit a deer, ranked from 25 to 1.