I wouldn’t mind having a road bike again, but all those years in IL were much safer when dodging deer. Most of the daytime riding was in high visibility areas. Night riding was rare.
In 5+ yrs here in TN we’ve hit two deer with our suv, and have taken evasive action that kept us from hitting several others. They say don’t do anything but brake. If we stuck to that we would have had probably a half dozen more strikes. They come charging out of the woods every day.
I think there was 2 rider fatalities from deer last year in Lewis county.
I do not ride at dusk or at night. Had a couple of moderately close calls with deer during the day. And one very close one with a whacked out dog at 60 mph