They spend their life finding their own food and water and avoiding hunters and predators, but when they see a house or a car they just stop thinking. Why?
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My understanding is that they are terrible at judging the speed, distance, and direction of cars. They have evolved to judge the speed, distance, and direction of predators who are much smaller and differently shaped, and have legs as a visual cues.
So their timing for when to bolt is off.
It is fairly common knowledge these days that the tide receding on a beach very quickly and far means that a tsunami is about to happen. But people only know of that danger, because other people survived and told them. People that don’t know any better often stick around and investigate. They don’t know any better, and they may not realize the danger.
Same with deer. Headlights are an unusual (at the very least unnatural) threat. There is no reason for a deer to think lights are dangerous until they get hit, and even if they do survive, they can’t raise awareness for other deer.
Hunters and predators are obvious threats — in each case, something is stalking them, and possibly trying to kill them.
A deer confronted with a car freezes because a car doesn’t *smell* like a predator, it doesn’t *sound* like a predator, and it certainly doesn’t *move* like a predator — so the deer stops to figure out whether it should expend energy to run from danger or stay put and let the strange noisy smelly thing go on its way.
Millions of years of evolution have taught deer that standing still is a good defense when being stalked By a predator Like a mountain lion. Cars have only been around for 100 years, not enough time for evolution to adapt
When a deer is caught in the headlights, they are basically blind for several seconds, because the headlights are so bright. And in that state they will not move.
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