Deer migrate and mate in October, November and December, increasing the likelihood of you encountering one on the roadway. When a deer or a moose or elk meets up with a moving vehicle, there’s on average about $2,500 worth of property damage, though it can exceed $10,000, says State Farm Insurance.

Your chances of hitting a deer with your car stand at one in 173 in Colorado, The Gazette reports today.

You can prevent a collision with a deer, moose or elk. Here are some tips from State Farm:

* Be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to “deer crossing” signs. Scan down the road and far off to each side. At night, use your high-beam lights if possible to illuminate the road’s edges. Be especially watchful in areas near woods and water. If you see one deer, there may be several others nearby.

* Be particularly alert at dusk and dawn when these animals venture out to feed.

* If you see a deer, moose or elk on or near the roadway and think you have time to avoid hitting it, reduce your speed, tap your brakes to warn other drivers and sound your horn. Deer tend to fixate on headlights, so flashing them may cause the animal to move. If there’s no vehicle close behind you, brake hard.

* If a collision seems inevitable, don’t swerve to avoid the animal; your risk of injury may be greater if you do. Maintain control of the vehicle. Report the accident to the police and your insurance company.

* Always obey the speed limit and wear safety belts.

Getting my driver’s license when I was 16 was a big deal, as I’m sure it is for teens today. Today, most people have to do their driver training on their own. They don’t have the luxury of a public-school-based program. But back when I was a teen, we had driver’s ed in school. We took six weeks out of P.E. to sit in the auditorium listening to Coach Gramer tell us the rules of the road — he even went so far as to show us a really scary movie about what would happen if we didn’t wear our seat belts. It’s one of the big reasons I wear mine to this day. We were even given a certain number of hours behind the wheel during school. This time with Coach Kerr, who made driving seem pretty scary just by sitting in the seat next to you. And I spent countless hours behind the wheel with Mom sitting next to me (stomping her foot on the floor, trying to hit the brake if she thought I was going a little too fast).

There was never any question as to whether I or my friends would get our driver’s licenses at 16. The only thing that held us back was getting in those practice hours. Now, before you think I’m getting nostalgic about the good old days, I want to remind you this was back in the day before air bags, when mid-size cars were bigger than today’s big sedans. When I got my license, I would haul four or five other kids to softball practice or the mall. Granted, we didn’t have cell phones to distract us, but imagine six teenage girls in a car together — talk about distracting.

Graduated licensing laws here in Colorado and in other states limit when teens can drive and who they can have in the car with them. The laws have helped lower teen crash rates around the country. But is it enough?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released a new report that focuses on the costs in terms of lives of allowing licensure sooner rather than later. The message is that licensing at later ages would substantially reduce crashes involving teen drivers. The same conclusion has been reached in other countries. Teens in Great Britain and most Australian states can’t get their licenses until they turn 17, for example. In most EU countries it’s 18. The Institute’s new report is being released at the annual meeting of the Governors Highway Safety Association.

“This is a tough sell,” says Anne McCartt, Institute senior vice president for research, “but it’s an important enough issue to challenge the silence and at least consider changing the age at which we allow teenagers to get their licenses to drive. After all, graduated licensing has been successful ever since states began to adopt these programs more than a decade ago, and raising the licensing age is a logical next step to reduce driving by the riskiest motorists on the road, the youngest ones.”

I’m sure there are a lot kids in their early to mid-teens out there thinking this is a terrible idea. But there are also probably a lot of parents of those kids worried about putting their child behind the wheel. Whether we license drivers at 16, 17 or even 18, they still need plenty of behind-the-wheel time with an experienced driver before they take off on their own.

“Sixteen-year-old drivers have the highest crash involvement rate of any age group in Colorado and are nearly three times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than the average of all other drivers,” says COTeenDriver.com. The Web site offers lots of tips for teens and their parents and all the information you need about Colorado’s Graduated Licensing Laws.

True or false: Restarting a car’s engine uses more gas than letting it idle.

False. Since the advent of fuel injection, it takes almost no gas to restart a car. In a situation where you could park the car and come back to it later, turn off the ignition. For safety reasons, this doesn’t apply when you’re stopped at an intersection or temporarily stuck in traffic.

Source: EnCompass; The AAA Companion magazine

It’s June. The kids are out of school. The temperatures are rising. The sun is shining. And the open road is calling. But with gas prices creeping up to — and over — the four dollar mark, it’s important to find ways to save gas during your summer road trips. My trusty Rain-X calendar offers these tips this month:

Easy does it — Aggressive driving (quick starts and stops) wastes gas and can reduce your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town.

Tip the scales — Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle, especially heavy ones; an extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your miles per gallon.

Just cruisin’ — When traveling long distances, use your cruise control to maintain consistent speed and avoid unnecessary speeding up and slowing down.

Fuel prices continue to rise to record highs, averaging $3.48 in Colorado Springs and as much as $3.77 in Glenwood Springs. Compare that to three years ago, when we were paying about $2.18 for a gallon of gas (and that seemed a whopping price then).

When trying to save gas — and money at the pump — make sure any tips you follow are tried and true and not something that might actually hurt your car.

This article from Money gives us six gas-saving myths and why they don’t work. And be especially careful of tips that are outright dangerous, like over-inflating your tires: “They’ll get you slightly better fuel economy because there will be less tread touching the road, reducing friction. But that means less grip for braking and turning.”

Your best bet are these tips from FuelEconomy.gov:

• Drive more efficiently
• Keep your car in shape
• Plan and combine trips
• Choose a more efficient vehicle

There’s a lot of talk about the gas tax holiday purposed by Republican presidential candidate John McCain and others. The hope is that suspending the gas tax for the summer will help ease the pain of soaring gas prices and help boost the economy. Those who oppose the gas tax holiday say it will push up the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut. Maybe instead of hoping for lower gas prices, we should look at better ways to save gas. I’m not saying you should just sit at home all summer or that you need to walk or take public transportation everywhere you go, because we love our cars and want to drive them.

First, you may want to avoid the cars on this list from Forbes — many of the cars on the list are too expensive for most of us to own anyway, but not all. FuelEconomy.gov has a list of the most and least fuel efficient cars, so you can make an informed decision when shopping for a new vehicle.

After you’ve traded in your Bugatti Veyron (8 miles per gallon city/14 mpg highway) for a Toyota Prius (48 mpg city/45 mpg highway), check out the gas-saving tips at FuelEconomy.gov. Things like observing the speed limit, removing excess weight, keeping your engine properly tuned and combining trips don’t sound too difficult. But it does take a little planning and a little restraint.

Forbes has a list of 10 great vehicles for taking a road trip. “Just as there are many destinations that beckon from the open road, there is an equally large assortment of vehicles in which to make the journey. Based on our test drives of virtually every model on the market, we highlight 10 vehicles that ForbesAutos editors think are well suited to specific types of road-trips, from a family vacation to carting the kids off to college and taking that well-earned getaway as empty nesters.”

Best for family vacations: Toyota Sienna
Best for trips for two: BMW 650i
Best for college road trips: Scion xB
Best for camping: Land Rover LR3
Best for fuel economy: Toyota Prius
Best for towing: GMC Yukon Denali
Best for moving the kids: Lincoln Mark LT
Best convertible: Jaguar XK
Best overall: Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec

For full descriptions and a slide show, click here.

Regardless of the type of vehicle you drive, here are some tips for smart vacation driving (from ARA Content):

* Have your car thoroughly checked out before going on a long vacation road trip. Be sure tires are properly inflated, oil and oil and air filters are fresh, and the air-conditioning is working properly.

* Drive smoothly and considerately. Aggressive driving — fast starts, excessive speed, abrupt maneuvers and constant braking — is not only dangerous, it significantly increases your vehicle’s fuel consumption.

* Only use premium fuel if your car’s manufacturer specifically recommends it for your engine type. Regular fuel costs less and premium will not improve your fuel efficiency in anything but a high-performance engine.

* Look for gas stations that offer pumps with vapor-recovery nozzles. They look like black plastic accordions attached to the nozzle. These curb emissions. Likewise, never try to “top off” your tank with these nozzles. They’re designed to shut off when the gas tank is at its optimum fullness. Continuing to pump could lead to overfilling and spilling.

*Try to pack light and avoid putting anything on top of your vehicle. Rooftop storage may increase the risk of rollover in some types of vehicles, and increases drag, which lowers fuel efficiency in all kinds of autos.

AAA, in partnership with the University of Florida’s National Older Driver Research and Training Center, has released its Smart Features for Mature Drivers.

AAA’s Smart Features for Mature Drivers identifies vehicle features that can assist drivers with visual, physical and mental changes that are frequently encountered as they age.

Some of the recommendations included in Smart Features for Mature Drivers include:

• Drivers suffering from hip or leg pain, decreased leg strength or limited knee range of motion should look for vehicles with six-way adjustable power seats and seat heights that come between the driver’s mid-thigh and lower buttocks. Both of these features can make it easier for drivers to enter and exit a vehicle.
• Drivers with arthritic hands, painful or stiff fingers or diminished fine motor skills would benefit from four-door models, thick steering wheels, keyless entry and ignition, power mirrors and seats and larger dashboard controls with buttons.
• Drivers with diminished vision or problems with low contrast sensitivity will find helpful vehicles with extendable sun visors, large audio and climate controls and displays with contrasting text.

AAA’s Smart Features for Mature Drivers also includes vehicle features recommended for all seniors, regardless of their health issues, such as:

• Proven crashworthiness, crash test and rollover ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
• Side and dual-stage/threshold airbags that adjust the deployment force based on the severity of the crash
• Adjustable head restraints and extra padding
• Antilock brakes
• Dynamic stability control

Winter had been kind to the city’s streets, with only 5,110 potholes fixed from January through March 14, reports Gazette.com. An interactive Google map on that page shows you where the potholes are and gives a bit of a description of the offending hole. The one at Woodmen Road and Austin Bluffs Parkway is on the “right-hand side in front of the gas station. A real car-eater.” And a pothole on Eastbound Barnes just east of the Powers intersection in the left turn lane is “expletive-inducing.” If you’ve got a nasty pothole in your neighborhood or along your commute, you can fill out the form at Gazette.com and your pothole will be added to the map so the rest of us can avoid it.

Gas prices are flying high, Gazette.com reports this morning. The average gas price in Colorado Springs is about $3.10, according to AAA. You can check out area gas prices at the AAA Web site. Fill in your zip code for gas prices near you.

AAA also offers a nationwide fuel price finder. You can look up gas prices for cities you’ll be driving to — or through. For example, if I drove to visit my family in Central Illinois, I’d pay about $3.23 per gallon of gas in Salina, Kan., $3.17 per gallon in Topeka, $3.13 per gallon in St. Louis, $3.29 per gallon in Effingham, Ill. and an average of $3.36 per gallon in my home town.

AAA’s Fuel Cost Calculator shows the average prices according to region — the Pacific Coast and the Great Lakes Regions are the highest, the Midwest and Mountain West are the lowest — and allows you to figure the cost of gas for your entire trip. It’s a pretty handy little tool for road trips.