That happy little jingle you hear these days emanating from your favorite auto body shop is probably the owner, because right now is certainly his Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Each November, cars come towed or crawling into garages with front ends compressed like accordions, windshields demolished, side mirrors ripped clean off the doors.

Jason Caldarone, who manages Charlestown Auto Body, has seen cars arrive at his Route 2 shop with their roofs peeled back like tin cans and clumps of fur hanging from all the sharp edges like some gruesome salutation of the season.

“Last year we had a brand new Trail Blazer come in,” he says. “The deer went down the whole side, wiping out the grill, the bumper, two doors, the side view mirror and the quarter panel. She [the driver] says it just came out of the woods and plowed into her. She told me, ‘I was looking at the thing in the teeth.’ ”

Repair cost? $9,000.

Ah, lust.

When evolution determined November as the prime rutting time for bucks to chase does in the pursuit of mating, there was little guidance, apparently, on how to avoid two-ton metal objects speeding across their path. The deer were here first, after all.

A new report by the Highway Loss Data Institute found that the number of fatalities from vehicle crashes with deer and other animals has more than doubled in the last 15 years because of urban sprawl encroaching deer habitat. Nationally, 223 people died last year, up from 150 in 2000 and 101 in 1993. Most of those accidents involved deer.

In Rhode Island, one of the nation’s most urban states, there have been no fatalities from deer collisions in at least 20 years, says the Department of Environmental Management. This despite the deer herd continuing to grow, thriving it seems with every new subdivision and their varied menus of ornamental shrubs, promising dining without hunter interruption.

The consequence for the deer is roadside carnage. For auto repair businesses “it’s a nice little addition,” says Greg Grabel of Auto Body Concepts in Chepachet.

“A good-size deer can do substantial damage,” Grabel says. “We’ve had deer hits exceed $10,000.”

A total of 1,095 deer were killed in vehicle accidents in Rhode Island last year, reports the DEM, a drop from 1,213 the previous year. Through the first eight months of this year, 648 deer were reported stuck by vehicles, with most collisions again occurring in South Kingstown (60) and North Kingstown (45). And those figures don’t include this fall’s mating season, when the number of collisions spike.

Tuesday, for instance, the DEM reported at least eight deer struck by vehicles in Rhode Island before 11 a.m.

All of this leads to good business for auto body shops.

“I don’t want deer getting run over,” says Caldarone, “but anything that brings in work, especially in this economy, is good.”

As he spoke, out on his lot, the cold tugged at the tuft of deer fur wedged above the left headlight of Judith Smith’s Hyundai Elantra.

Smith, a 71-year-old widow and retired school cook, was driving home to Exeter from a night of bingo at her sister’s when she became the latest body-shop customer.

“I was heading north on Route 2 just before the Veterans Cemetery,” she says. ‘It was about 8:50 and I was almost to the entrance to Split Rock Trailer Park. I had put on my blinker to turn and had slowed down, which was a good thing, because a deer came charging out from behind the oncoming car.”

Boom. “It happened so fast. It was there before you could blink. I was a little shook.” The deer collided with her left front end then bounded into the woods.

Smith received two estimates for the repairs, both around $2,100. She will have to pay a $500 deductible, as well as the cost of a rental car until Caldarone can fix her car.

Smith says she knew this was the time of year when deer “are running rampant. I was being especially careful.”

Every autumn, the DEM cautions motorists to be alert for deer darting onto the roads, particularly from dusk through dawn. By law, motorists must report deer accidents to the DEM’s dispatch office (401-222-3070) and the local police.

Though often a small consolation, motorists who hit deer can keep them, with the DEM’s permission. If not, the department has a revolving list of 28 game clubs that they call to see if they want to claim the venison.

Terry Gaucher, 37, decided to claim the 170-pound buck that struck his SUV Monday night — his second deer collision in the same 2001 Dodge Durango in two years.

He was heading home to Burrillville on a dark section of Route 102 with his son, his girlfriend and her daughter as passengers. It was shortly after 6:30 p.m.

“I felt the thud before I actually saw the deer,” he says. “He came across an open lane and hit the driver’s side front end.” The collision pushed the deer down the road a ways. “A couple of guys ran out and took it off the road because cars were swerving to avoid it.”

The 7-year-old girl “was a bit frightened while my son was more interested in seeing the dead deer.” Two people who had stopped on the road wanted the buck, Gaucher says. “My girlfriend joked that everyone was worried about who was going to take the deer and no one was asking me if I was OK.”

For the second time, Gaucher took his Durango up to George Sparrow at George’s Auto Repair on Victory Highway in Burrillville.

Cost to repair the front end? $4,000.

“It could be 10 times worse,” Gaucher said. “At least no one got hurt.” And the last time repairs were twice as much.

Gaucher gave the deer to a friend; he’ll have it cut up this weekend.

Gaucher is driving his father’s car for a while and wondering whether lightning will strike a third time.

And so the season goes.

Everyone seems to have a deer story …

At the East Greenwich fitness club where he works, Matthew Flynn, of Providence, was talking of the three does that ran out in front of him earlier this week on Route 295.

The sound of one of the deer hitting his car “was probably the equivalent of you standing on a flight of stairs and dropping a coffee table on a cement floor.”

Off to the shop.

And down at Hal’s Auto Body in South Kingstown, Harold Thomas was talking of the woman in the Lexus who saw a doe run out in front of her at dusk on Torrey Road. She knew the deer was probably being chased by a buck, so she slowed down and avoided the other deer that followed, only to be rewarded by the first doe turning around and running back into her car.

Cost: $1,800.

There are losers and winners.

Says Harold Thomas: “The economy isn’t much right now. This will help pick things up.”

tmooney@projo.com