HOUSTON – There have been many taboos and myths about the effects a full moon has on people, animals and the planet.
A new research from Texas A&M University found a 45.8% increase in vehicle collisions involving wildlife during a full moon.
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Former Texas A&M student Kentaro Iio and Dr. Dominique Lord, a professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, collected 10 years of collision data in Texas to compare full-moon nights with new-moon nights and their corresponding wildlife-vehicle collisions. Non-wildlife collisions in the same time periods showed no significant differences, the study showed.
Based on the findings of the study, drivers should increase their caution on full-moon nights, especially on brighter nights.
Researchers said the study could also help inform transportation policy and infrastructure improvements where better safety measures are necessary.
“I compared really dark nights without moon illumination (new moon) to really dark nights with the full moon illumination,” Iio said. “If you include other lunar phases in the analysis, they appear on the horizon at different times each day, making it more difficult for true apples-to-apples comparisons.”
Worldwide studies also found similar findings of vehicle collisions involving wildlife during a full moon.
Other factors like driver fatigue at night and increased wildlife activity could also warrant further study by transportation and animal behavior experts.
“Although the illumination is better, it’s still nighttime,” Lord said. “When you drive at night, I’m not sure the illumination from the various perspectives is so much greater compared to daytime.”
Wildlife species identification was beyond the scope of this research. The study also did not account for variations in illumination intensity over the study period for the analyzed geographic areas. Future studies could account for these gaps when finer-resolution data is available for traffic volumes, illumination and wildlife species identification by region.
Potential improvements such as increased lighting in rural areas, adding wildlife warning reflectors along rural highways or increased emergency services on specific nights could also warrant further consideration and study by scientific, engineering and economic experts.