Hey, I'm not knocking the whistlers, and if you read carefully, you'll see that I said " they will hear the sound getting louder and move to safer ground which should have indicated that your beeping the horn as you ride and, one just has to get a small short toot for it to be very effective. From what I've heard the Soviet state of N.J. is the most deer populated state in the nation, 104 per sq.mile at present, and by the way, I run trains for a living so while other engineer's are doing their part to keep the deer population down, I've only hit one in the last 2 1\2 years and unfortunately it was a little one running after its mommy across the tracks.. Not only do I do it while working I also, toot my own horn while riding to and from work. It also helps immensely to shut ones headlights off, day or night when possible, I've proven to myself that they also get somewhat blinded by the headlights during the day. If the equipment I'm running has a bell I leave it on in heavily deer populated areas and never see one on or along the tracks day or night.
Since I work for mass transit I have to drive all over the northern half of the state and while using my toot my own horn method over 26 years, I have only seen deer off to the sides of the roads, or am I just luckier than most of the other mass transit workers out there,
P.S. Many of the people I work with use the deer whistlers and have conflicting opinions on if they work or not. I think anything is better than nothing.
PPS. I have deer just down the street from me not twenty minutes away.
