LITTLETON – For deer, the fall time change Sunday morning means trouble: a 16% spike in collisions with vehicles over the following week, despite years of safety campaigns and the construction of 75 special crossings along highways.

Drivers in Colorado collided with at least 54,189 wild animals over the past 15 years, according to newly compiled Colorado Department of Transportation records. That’s far fewer than in many other states, such as Michigan, where vehicle-life collisions often number more than 50,000 in one year.

The carnage — especially this time of year — increasingly occurs where animals face the most people along the heavily populated Front Range, beyond the mountainous western half of the state that holds much of the remaining prime habitat, state records show.

State lea

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